Through the Never
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: 2012. S8 spoilers. Cas disappeared. He was alone. And every monster he'd ever killed was somewhere in here with him. Dean's year in Purgatory started out as a struggle for survival. When he met the vampire, it became a struggle with himself. Looking for the way out, he found truth in the purity of hunting. Follows S8 to 8x02, then diverges. No slash. Feedback appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

**Through the Never**

* * *

_But nothing unclean shall enter it, nor any one who practises abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life._

_Revelation 21:27_

* * *

**Chapter 1**

The angel had disappeared, but he wasn't alone. He could hear them, feel them, _smell_ them, a thick canine smell, moving around him, watching, deciding how easy he would be.

_Pretty fucking easy if you don't get your ass into gear_, he thought, licking his lips. His thoughts felt slow, hard, mired in the shock that was still seeping through his body. One minute, a clean white lab in Illinois, the next a dark and ominous forest, Cas said they were in Purgatory, fucking _Purgatory_, sucked here with Dick and he was struggling still to take that in. And he was on his own, truly on his own, for the first time in a long time.

_You'll die on your own if you don't get moving_. The voice in his head came again, and he agreed with it, looking around for something to get his back against, somewhere to hide. The trees were spindly, masses of saplings and prickly undergrowth, not much that would provide any kind of protection.

_C'mon, think goddammit! Think!_ Shadows flitted between the trees, moving fast, faster than human, faster than he could move. The crackle and snap of feet over the forest floor, only slightly louder than the pounding of his heart, the ragged noise of his harshly indrawn breaths. Red eyes glowing like embers in the darkness. Too many monsters, too many fucking monsters he'd sent here personally. He could feel all of them looking at him. Fresh meat. Easy meat. One precious, delicious human, unarmed, disoriented, alone.

_Fuck that_. He started to run.

In the shadows of the forest, under a moonless, starless sky, he couldn't find a trail. He was running blind, adrenalin surging through him, driving him on, driving him faster, every noise, including the ones he was making, a goading spear tip, amping his fear higher the longer he went.

His head snapped around at a rustle beside him, and he slammed into the tree in front of him, bouncing off it and onto his back, feeling a wrenching pain in his shoulder, a sharper, brighter pain under his ribs. He rolled fast to one side, under the half-rotted remains of a fallen log, his head pounding with a combination of pain and adrenalin overload, eyes stretched wide to see something, anything, in the blackness that surrounded him.

_Gonna kill yourself running in a panic_, the voice came back, hard and cold. _Get your bearings. You've got your knife. Get something behind you and let them bring it_.

A shudder ran through him and he rolled onto his side, feeling for the knife sheathed at the back of his hip. His fingers found the roughened hilt and pulled it out, instantly feeling more in control with the blade in his line of sight.

The thump on top of the log above him brought his concentration back to a fine-point focus. Offence was only a solid option when one had surprise or numbers. Defence was a better strategy here. He had to stay alive. Let them bring it.

The head that swung over the edge of the log and into view was barely visible, a faint outline of hair and sharply defined features, but the eyes were clear, glowing in the deep set sockets, alight with bloodlust. He swung without thought, his body reacting as it always had, as it had been trained to do, and the long blade slid down the bone into the left eye, slicing through the soft tissue and into the brain behind it.

Dean rolled out from under the log, barely aware now of the pain in his shoulder and side as he caught the hair and yanked the head back, hacking through the throat and spine and throwing the head into the trees. The blood that sprayed from the ragged neck was icy cold on his skin and he turned his head fast, closing his eyes, his mouth compressing tightly.

Claws punched through the arm of his jacket, through his shirt and into his arm, and he turned, the yell of pain morphing into a scream of rage as the creature was swung with him, unable to release its hold in the tightly contracted muscle, looking down in astonishment as the knife plunged into its sternum, skin and muscle burning and blackening with the deep intimate touch of the silver. The fingers tightened unbearably, then relaxed and Dean dragged the claws from his arm.

He fumbled in his jacket pocket, feeling for the smooth cool metal of the Zippo, pulling it out, lighting it and sweeping the flame over the dry undergrowth next to the log in one frantic motion.

Twigs and bark caught first, curling smoke and heat into the air in front of him. In the forest around him, the saplings and bushes leapt into view, painted with the pale gold light of the growing flames. Crackling and rustling around him as the souls of Purgatory drew back from the voraciously growing fire.

He reached forward, ignoring the pain as he thrust his hand into the fire and pulled out a long burning branch, tossing it behind him, a sharp glance over his shoulder checking that it too was catching the tinder of branch and brush, more smoke rising as the flames licked at the damper leaf litter.

Dean looked around warily. _Not such easy meat_, he thought with a faint thread of satisfaction. He looked down at the shifter at his feet, dead with the poison of silver deep in its gut, and crouched beside it, rolling the body over and feeling through the pockets and lining of the clothing. He rose a moment later and reached for the jacket of the vampire that lay over the log, dragging the body down onto the ground. Still clasped in the vamp's hand, he saw the long stick, the end split and a small chipped stone blade bound into it. He pulled it loose. He would need something with a better reach than the knife he had. Looking at the small blade at the end of the stick, he didn't think the weapon would do much, but it sure was better than nothing at all. Better than getting within biting distance of the creatures that filled this place.

The two fires fed upon the dry woodland brush, one of them starting to blacken the bark of the sapling close to it. He stood between them, watching the darkness at the limits of the firelight, every sense stretched out tautly to give him warning of anything that might decide to try their luck with him. He had to find Cas. Had to find a way out. Had to stay alive.

* * *

He was still standing there when he noticed that it was getting lighter. The fires burned reluctantly, charring the green wood more than consuming it, the dry branches almost gone and the damp humus that covered the forest floor quenching even the glowing embers. His nose was filled with the smell of the acrid smoke, but nothing had come close again in the night, and he touched the Zippo in his pocket lightly, hoping that the fluid in it would last as long as he needed it.

As the light brightened, Dean realised he could see through the trees now. It would be mistake to think that because the darkness had passed, he was in any less danger, he thought bleakly, feeling exhaustion and the heavy hangover of the adrenalin pressing at him. He needed to get moving, needed to find someplace that was protected enough to let him sleep, if only for a few minutes.

He looked around the forest again. Were there any kind of rules to it, he wondered? Any kind of predictable behaviour he could learn and use? He couldn't see any sign of movement, couldn't hear any other noise in the woods other than the slowing pop and hiss and soft crackle of the fires. He had the uncomfortable feeling that this place had no rules. That he would be surviving moment to moment, with precious little time to do anything other than stay alive.

He was surprised to find that he wasn't hungry. Just thirsty. Was that something that would continue? Or was it just a side-effect of spending the night hopped up on enough fear and adrenalin to override his body's needs?

Shaking his head, he decided it didn't matter, not now, not yet. He rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the grit and grime and blood on his skin. Turning, he started to walk down the faint trail he could see clearly now, skirting the remains of the smouldering fire on the edge of it. He headed downhill. If there was any kind of water here, it would be in the valleys. Gravity worked here as well as it did in the real world, and he hoped that water would follow its rule in the same way.

The bright movement of the tiny creek caught his eye as it wound through the undergrowth and he hurried toward it, hearing the faint sighs and chuckles and splashes as he got close. He crouched by the edge, watching the water as it fell over the bare tree roots, over the rocks, widening here and there into pools dark with the decomposing vegetation that lined the bottom. Where it raced over rock, he cupped his hand beneath the flow and lifted it to his face, sniffing warily, then dipping his tongue into it. _Clean water. Ground water, maybe_. He put both hands under the little waterfall and filled them, drinking greedily then splashing the water over his face, scrubbing at the dried blood and sweat that coated it, running wet fingers through his hair.

The forest was silent. He got up and looked downstream, seeing the ground drop away a few hundred yards further on. Here, near the life-giving water, the trees were bigger, older, spaced apart. He looked up into the canopy thoughtfully. If he could get high enough, he might be hidden. Even if not hidden, he couldn't be taken by surprise. He looked around and found what he wanted on the other side of the stream, down the hill where the slope began to fall away. Crossing the stream, he picked his way slowly down through the mess of fallen timber and rampant vegetation. A broken ankle would put an end to everything, pretty fucking fast.

The tree stood eight or nine feet from the steep slope, the lowest branches fifteen feet from the ground. Dean looked at the drop, at the fork he'd need to make and pulled in a deep breath. His knife was back in the sheath on his belt, the long shiv angled through the belt. He backed up another step and then ran for the edge, jumping high when the ground fell away, reaching forward, his fingers clutching at the rough bark as his feet hit the branch. He looked back over his shoulder at the slope, then up the trunk in front of him, and started to climb.

He was maybe thirty feet from the ground when he found a good fork, hidden in the dense, healthy needles but giving him a clear line of sight over the hillside and down into the valley. The branch growing out from the trunk was almost horizontal, wide and solid, forking again almost immediately. He settled himself on it and stared out through the clusters of needles, the flat, even grey of the sky – _was it sky?_ – showing no discernible clouds, just a diffused light that bled the colour from everything.

_Purgatory._

God's lock-box, Death had called it. Prison for the things that could never be allowed to escape. And for the souls of the monsters created later, the Mother of All's warped and bloodthirsty children. Cas said they'd be more likely to get ripped to shreds than escape, but he hadn't said there _wasn't_ a way out. So he was going to run with that, and keep looking.

He leaned back against the broad, rough-barked trunk, feeling the aches and pains coming back, making themselves known, felt. His fingers found an egg-shaped lump on one side of his forehead, likely responsible for the throbbing headache. He shifted against the trunk, easing the sore muscle under his shoulder off the knobbly bark. He thought he'd landed on a rock when he'd bounced off the tree. The sharp pain under his ribs on the other side of his back was where he'd fallen onto a branch end. The punctures in his left arm were still throbbing. He should look at them later; he thought vaguely, they needed cleaning out. He felt his eyelids drop and let them stay closed. He needed to sleep. Needed to get some rest. Sam would be looking for him. The thought brought a small measure of warmth. Probably wouldn't be able to find him, but at least he'd be looking. He let out a long exhale. He was probably going to die here. The thought didn't raise much concern, really. He'd thought he'd die taking Dick down. He was sorry that he didn't have a chance to say goodbye to his brother. But Sam knew, knew all the important stuff anyway. It wasn't like they had any real unfinished business between them. And Sam was the only one left. The only one left who knew, or would care, if Dean Winchester died.

The side of his mouth lifted briefly. He was still alive. And tomorrow was always a better day to die.

* * *

When he woke, it was dark. The forest around him was alive with movement, with soft calls and noises and rustlings. He stayed still; eyes open slightly, stretching out with his senses into the blackness of the night.

Distantly, on the other side of the ridge, he thought, he heard the ululations, five or six distinct howls, rising and falling discordantly. The werewolves probably hunted in packs here. And clearly the lack of a full moon was no problem.

His head snapped around as he heard a crash in the undergrowth, upstream and close. It was followed by laughter, high-pitched and hollow, and a hopeless, breathless scream. The crashing continued, heading toward him, and he closed his eyes, his ears picking out the differences between the noises of the desperate prey and the slower predators, confident in the certainty of the coming kill.

Hollow thump as two sets of feet hit the top of a log. Rasping breath and arrhythmic footfalls almost beneath him, on the other side of the stream. The dull thud of something hard hitting something softer and a wavering, thin shriek of pain rising in the darkness. He heard the slow scrabbling in the litter of the forest floor, and the low giggles close by. The scream was cut off abruptly, replaced by a tearing and a crunching and a soft wet sound that his imagination had no difficulty providing images for immediately.

He remained completely still, breathing slowly and deeply, listening to the raw and unambiguous sounds beneath him. This was the way it would be, he understood. Kill. Or be killed. No innocent people to be saved. No greater purpose or glory to be served. Just keeping himself off the dinner menu. Period. And if the Discovery Channel drama playing out under him wasn't clear enough, then he fucking well deserved to die.

Further away he heard another scream. It seemed like the monster's appetites were stronger at night – or what passed for night in this place. He might be able to travel in the daylight hours, look for Cas. The angel was his only hope of ever getting out of here. It was a thin hope, but he clung to it, because the alternative was unthinkable.

_And if Cas was dead? Or had somehow left, escaping alone?_ The voice in his head mused.

Then he was fucked. Well and truly fucked. He would probably keep looking for a way out, for a while, he thought. Because that's all he would be able to do. But sooner or later, it would come down to a decision. He pushed the thought away. He would worry about that when he got to that place, not before.

After a year of finding it more and more difficult to care about life, to care about whether he lived or died, just putting one foot in front of the other, he realised that here, in this place, he cared a lot about living. He wasn't going to be the chew toy of some random fucking monster, not while he could still breathe and fight.

He had no idea of the time. His watch was still on his wrist but it had stopped, probably the second they'd come here. More sleep wouldn't hurt, if he was going to be moving tomorrow. He closed his eyes, shutting out the continuing sounds from below, telling his subconscious to wake him if there were any new noises in the vicinity. He hoped that Cas was still alive, still here. It was a strange feeling, to hope again.

* * *

Dean lay in the ditch, arms resting along a branch that sloped across it, covered in leaves and pine needles. He was still and silent, only his eyes moving as he watched the narrow trail below, waiting.

_Bonus points for Purgatory_, he thought vaguely. No bugs, no snakes or rats. His camouflage was warm without being irritating or dangerous. He moved his hand slightly, scratching at the puckered healed-over wound on his forearm. The pack had taken him by surprise the day before, only five of them, but all in their dogskins and together they'd almost brought him down. Didn't seem like he was in any danger of being turned into a monster here, though. He'd gotten enough bites. The wounds had healed, leaving a faint ache and an irritating itch.

He heard a muffled snap up trail, and tightened his grip on the thin, twisted rope of stripped bark and reeds in his hand, freezing into immobility as the shadows passed in front of him. Three, silhouetted against the brighter hillside on the other side of the trail, the long, unkempt hair breaking up their outlines. He jerked on the string as the last stepped over the trap-line.

The green boughs, bent back and held tightly, snapped free. Along their lengths, sharpened stakes, hardened in fire and bound tightly into splits along the branches, swung forward and into the creatures, and the forest was filled with screaming howls and bloodcurdling snarls as the monsters tried to get free. Dean erupted from the ditch, scattering leaf matter and twigs and needles, on the trail and beside the trap in a second.

The trap lay where the needle-covered trail narrowed and began to climb. It had taken him a couple of days to find the spot, and another two to set it up, but looking down at them, his mouth curled up on one side, satisfaction lighting his eyes. The werewolves were helpless in the man-made thorn cage; the stakes had penetrated their legs and arms, gone through their chests and torsos and the more they struggled, the deeper they became enmeshed.

"Guess you boys wolf out all the time here?"

He walked slowly to the nearest, looking over the long, black, tangled hair that fell from the scalp and neck and cascaded down its back, over the tattered clothing that it must have been wearing when it'd arrived here. The hands were tipped by curving claws, and the same long claws were obvious on the bare feet. The werewolf turned to him, lips drawn back from long, canine fangs and a deep guttural growl coming from its chest. Its blood, spilling from the edges of the punctures, was bright red, the only bright colour in the muted greys and greens and browns of the forest.

"Where's the angel?" Dean walked around the edge of the trap, looking from the first to the next, his knife in his hand.

The second werewolf twisted and lunged at him, its dark brown pelt silvered from the crown, one arm pinned to its body by the long stake, the snarl echoing down to the river.

Dean looked at it, unimpressed by the closeness of the snapping jaws. "I'm gonna be really fucking pissed if the only thing you monsters can do is dog impersonations."

"Angel."

The voice ground out, the word thick and indistinct in its throat. Dean turned and looked at the third monster. The smoky-grey pelt that covered most of its upper body was a vivid contrast to the deeply-tanned skin of its face, the bright blue eyes with their slitted pupils staring back at him.

"Where?"

The creature barked out a short laugh. "Why – tell?"

"Because I'll kill you quick," Dean pointed out dryly. "Instead of leaving you here for whatever else is hungry in this place." He gestured at the forest with the knife, and shrugged. "Might not be much of an offer, but it's the only one on the table."

"Four days." The monster looked up the trail, jerking his head in the direction, its jaw twisting oddly as it tried to get the words out. "Angel walked."

Dean followed its gaze. _Four days ago? Not much help_. He turned back to the werewolf. It was panting, and blood was bubbling from one side of the mouth. He stepped close, to the side where the arm was pinned and thrust the knife through the ribs. Dean watched the wolf features smoothing back out to the human it had been, once. Both remaining werewolves howled, the ululation rising in pitch and volume until the sound filled the tiny clearing. They fought and thrashed against the strong, green branches.

The creaking crack of the branch snapped his head around as the black werewolf pulled free of the trap, the stakes dragged through the long muscles of its legs, leaving bloody holes in its stomach and chest. He ducked under the long reach of a powerfully muscled arm, feeling the claws rake through his hair, rolling backwards to give himself more space. It came after him fast and he'd barely made his feet when the blow hit him, scimitar claws ripping across the side of his face and continuing down through his shirt and into his chest, the impact knocking him backward into a tree. The monster leapt at him and Dean shook his head, his knife coming up automatically.

He felt the blade slide in, the hilt shoved hard back into his own ribs with the werewolf's weight, crushing him against the unyielding trunk of the tree. For a moment, his vision greyed, the predator's rank smell enveloping him, the coarse hair brushing over his arms and shoulders and a truly stomach-turning, thick, putrid breath filling his mouth. Sagging back against the tree, his chest heaved as he tried to get air into his lungs. Then the weight dropped off him as the body fell to the ground, and he could breathe again, the wheezing inhale filling his lungs. The wounds on his face and chest and the back of his head throbbed in time with his heart beat.

In the trap, the last werewolf was frenzied, tearing at the stakes that impaled it from all sides. Dean wiped a hand over his face and staggered across the body, now, like the other, just a man. He squinted at the thrashing beast, edging closer.

_Fucking thing would be free in a minute_, he thought tiredly. It'd ripped several of the hardened stakes from its body, uncaring of the gouges that poured its blood onto the ground, lunging at him, the teeth snapping together furiously.

Recognising that the trap was too tightly entwined to reach the man from this side, it twisted away, feet scrabbling on the soft ground for purchase and Dean stepped in, driving the knife blade into the side of the thickened, muscular neck, and severing the artery there, the creature's shriek drilling into his ears as it turned for him, and exposed the broad chest. Blood hit him in the face as he plunged the knife into the ribs, feeling the tip hit bone and twisting it until it slid past and through. The werewolf's eyes blazed into his for an endless moment then the light in them died, and the body fell, hanging just off the ground, suspended by the branches still holding it.

Stepping back, Dean wiped his face with his arm, spitting out the blood he could taste in his mouth. His legs were trembling slightly from the last minute of action, and he reached up gingerly to feel the swelling on the back of his head, where the impact of the werewolf had slammed it into the tree. _Still alive_, he thought, leaning on the thicker branch in front of him. _Get down to the river_. The stink of the monsters still filled his nostrils, was all over him, and he didn't want to smell it anymore.

_Well, at least Cas is still alive, was alive, four days ago_. He stumbled down the slope, looking up river and down before he stepped out of the cover of the treeline and walked slowly across the pebbled bank. _And he's still here … maybe_.

He dropped to his knees at the water's edge, a still pool on the outskirts of the faster current, and cleaned the knife, drying it on his shirt and sliding it back into the sheath on his belt. Pulling off his jacket, he looked down at the long claw marks on his chest. They were stinging but they didn't seem all that deep. He leaned out over the pool, seeing the matching set on the side of his face, his reflection clear on the still water. They'd be gone in the morning, and just as well, he thought sourly, because the number of hits he'd taken in the last couple of days would've killed him topside.

He cupped his hands in the water and splashed it over his face, washing the blood away from the wound edges carefully. Despite the ache in them, they didn't feel all that bad. He wondered distractedly if the scars themselves would disappear eventually here.

"Help! Help me!"

The cry, a young and female voice, was more startling than a brass band. Dean was on his feet, his knife in his hand again as he looked across the river and saw her, scrabbling down the hillside, flashes of white and long hair in between the saplings that crowded the other shore. She stumbled out of the trees and into the river, a young woman, wearing a long white dress, the skirts held bunched in both hands. She struggled through the current, her tangled, dark hair whipping around her face as she looked back over her shoulder, her whooping breaths clearly audible to Dean, watching her approach.

"Help me, please!" She looked up at him, maybe fifteen feet away now, and he saw an oval face, covered in grime, pale skin under the dirt, wide, deep brown eyes staring pleadingly into his.

"What?" He looked past her to the forest, seeing nothing. "What's chasing you?"

"Vampires, dozens of them – I escaped –" She lifted her chin, and he saw the torn bites along the line of her neck. "They're coming, we have to hide!"

_Human_, he thought dazedly, _another human_. He listened but couldn't hear anything over the splashing she was making as she kept coming toward him. No sounds from the trees, nothing to indicate a pursuit. _Really human? _He looked down at her. Her skin was smooth, save for the faint crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. She looked exhausted, and he wondered how far she'd run.

"You might have lost them."

She shook her head vehemently, twisting to look across the river. "No, they're there."

"I can't hear anything." He looked back up the hillside. "You should clean those bites."

He stretched out his hand to her and she took it, holding the soaked bottom of her dress in one hand as she waded out of the river. Dean watched the bank behind her for a moment, then looked back at her, his eyes narrowing slightly as she seemed to slip in and out of focus. He rubbed his fingers over his forehead, wondering if the blow to the back of his head was worse than he'd thought.

"Are you alright?" She stepped closer to him, and he nodded, one foot sliding out from under him as he turned, making him wince. He felt dizzy, disconnected, and he tried to push it away, gritting his teeth, forcing himself to focus on the ground, on the water.

"Yeah. I hit my head a … a while ago," he said, closing his eyes briefly. "Must have hit it harder than I thought."

He started to walk and she followed him to the edge of the pool. Crouching down, he cupped his hands in the water again. She was behind him, leaning over his shoulder when he saw her reflection, the pitted skull only half-covered in torn flesh, the deep eye-sockets with nothing but blackness in them and a glint far back, the image wavering and shimmering nauseatingly on the still water.

He threw himself forward into the water, twisting onto his back as the wraith jumped onto him, a long crystalline spike extending from her wrist. Grabbing the wrist with one hand, he rolled to one side, fighting off the shaking and trembling in his vision, the colours that were pulsing all around him and frantically tugging out his knife.

_Too many fucking monsters_, he thought, feeling her fingernails slice into his hand. He ignored the pain and brought his knee up, taking her in the stomach and throwing his weight over to break her grip on him. The blade gleamed softly in the dull grey light and he thrust it in, forcing it upwards under the sternum to penetrate her heart.

The body crazed and crumbled into dust, filling the water with swirling milky clouds of god-knew-what. He sat up slowly, levering himself out of the shallow pool, face screwed up with distaste. _Goddamned Purgatory, with its monsters on every corner_. He was coated in the thing's remains.

The trees and the river bank were bulging and shifting, getting brighter and dimmer as the wraith's venom pumped through his bloodstream. He could hear rustlings from the forest's edge and turned his head, seeing nothing in the darkness under the trees. He stumbled across the flat rocks, seeing the river rushing ahead of him, but not the edge of the rock he stood on. His foot disappeared into the foaming current and he fell head-first into the shallow water, the cold, clean bite of it soaking through his clothes and into his skin as he lay on his back on the mica riverbed, eyes rolled back.

_The drop-saw cut through the neck easily, sending out a spray of blood over the workshop, over the bench and over him. The crack of the revolver was loud in the street and the demon coruscated inside the human body, the light dying out finally and the body dropping on top of his brother. The girl was dying, and still he pressed at her, ignoring his awareness of her pain, of her suffering. _

_Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn't hesitate, I didn't even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it's just, uh... it scares me sometimes._

He opened his eyes, shivering in the cold water. The hallucinations were gone, the surreal feeling of the world bulging in and out had dissipated as well. He was freezing. He sat up and rolled slowly to his feet, looking at the knife still tightly held in one hand. Sliding it back into the sheath, he waded out of the river and looked at the deadfalls up near the trees. He needed a fire.

* * *

_**Two weeks later.**_

Dean ran through the forest, watching the ground in front of him, following the crashing and panting he could hear further up the hill. He froze as the noises stopped, waiting, then accelerated again when there was a further crash.

The vamp was starting to angle down across the slope, he thought, jumping the fallen branches and ducking under those too high to jump without thought or effort. He'd be on the same trail in another few seconds. He saw the flash of movement slightly ahead and lengthened his stride, unaware that a cold grin had flashed over his face.

He was fitter. Faster. Not entirely sure how that was, although he'd spent a lot of time over the past couple of weeks on his feet, running. No need to eat, or sleep. Not here. Even that first day, in the trees, he'd realised later he hadn't been sleeping, exactly. Resting was more accurate. He hadn't dreamed. The deep puncture wounds in his bicep had gone by the time he'd climbed down the tree the following morning, and seen the scattered remains of whatever luckless monster soul had been hunted the previous night. The bruising and the ragged cut on his back had gone as well. He wasn't completely sure about that, he couldn't get a look at them, but the pain had gone.

He'd wondered if that was because he was human, in his own real flesh, or if there was some kind of regeneration force at work in the place, as there'd been in Hell. The thought, he decided, was irrelevant. It was working on him, and that was all that mattered. It did make him wonder if he could be killed down here, but that wasn't an experiment he was willing to conduct.

The vamp broke through into a clearing and stopped, head tipping back in the unchanging grey light that was Purgatory's day. Dean came out onto a broad trail, moving soundlessly now on the thick leaf litter, and walked slowly up behind it. He still hadn't figured out how it worked, these monsters and their existence here. They fed on each other, in some way, he knew, but he couldn't imagine what they got from it – a continuation of the evil they'd done on the earthly plane? Or some kind of sustenance that was essential to them? It probably didn't make much difference.

He was expecting the turn when it came, the vampire swinging around fast, the crude heavy blade he held hissing through the air toward him. His hand hit the vamp's wrist, stopping the weapon's flat arc, and he struck at the arm holding it, the weighted fist holding his knife splitting the muscle and the weapon flying to one side as he shoved the vampire backwards, slamming it into the tree next to the trail.

Watching the second set of teeth descend, hearing the growling snarls of the creature he held pinned in front of him, he felt an odd sense of … completion. He was acutely aware of everything around him, everything in him … the strength in his muscles as they flexed against the strength of the monster, the depth of the silence in the forest around them, the sharp pine smell of the trees, and the deeper, underlying odour of decay from the fallen needles and leaves that carpeted the ground, and over those, the reek of the vampire, of rotting flowers and decomposing flesh. He could see every detail of the vamp's features, the shreds of old flesh between its teeth, the tiny clumps of dirt on its eyelashes as it looked down at him.

"Take a breath. Calm down," he said, easing the pressure a little against the vamp's chest. "Where's the angel?"

The vampire smiled fleetingly, breath still rasping in his throat. "You're him."

Dean drew back fractionally, brows pulling together. From the vamp's threads, it looked like it'd been here a long time, maybe there was a translation problem here.

"The human," the vampire whispered to him, and the stench of decay flooded out of its mouth over him.

"Where's the angel?!" he snapped, lifting the knife until the blade's edge was pressing into its neck.

"I don't know." The vampire leaned toward him, pushing against the blade, uncaring of the thin red line that it had opened. It stared into his eyes hungrily.

_He probably didn't_, Dean thought, looking at him. Another small fish in a pond where it was mostly small fish. He hadn't yet come across any creature that knew any more than this one, or any that had been stronger than this one. It was the percentages, he guessed, a lot of mediocre monsters down here. The corner of his mouth lifted at the thought.

He shifted his weight to the hand holding the vamp's chest and drove the knife through its arm into the tree trunk behind it, pinning it to the tree. It snarled at the pain, the sound curiously dulled and diffused in the forest. Turning away, Dean leaned over and picked up the weapon the thing had been carrying, feeling the weight as he lifted it.

A long stone blade, slightly curved, chipped out to sharp edge and blackened with old blood, lashed to a thigh bone. It was heavy and unbalanced, but it would do the trick, he thought. He swung around and the blade rose smoothly, an extension of his arm and hand, he felt, the edge slicing precisely through the vampire's neck and burying itself in the trunk behind. He watched the body drop and the head fall away without expression, yanking the stone blade from the wood.

There was no sound, no warning as he began to turn back to the clearing , just the creature's yell as it hit him, shoulder driving into his chest, the blade flying free from his hand as it took them both to the ground. He got a flash of teeth, too many fucking teeth in the mouth above him, feeling its weight against the arm he had braced against its chest, keeping those teeth off him, his head snapping to the left, seeing the stone axe lying nearby, but slightly out of reach. His fingers scrabbled in the humus, stretching out desperately but he was still too far, he needed to get closer, the weight over him and the slippery surface making that near impossible.

The vampire gripped the edges of his jacket, its full weight on his chest as it used him to get its feet under it. His breath was forced out and it jerked him up, his collarbone flexing sickeningly under the strength of its grip. A flash of shadow over him and the weight was gone, the hands were gone, he rolled onto his side and gripped the end of the bone, getting to his feet in time to see a second monster swing something at his attacker and the snarling sound stop instantly.

He watched the most recently arrived vampire turn his head slowly, the dim light showing the points and crevices in the fangs that slowly withdrew. First time he'd been saved by a monster – at least here. He couldn't imagine why it would have done it. Monsters were, by and large, predictable. Rapacious. Evil. Hard to kill, sometimes, but mostly predictable. An unpredictable monster made him nervous.

The vamp rose to his feet, and Dean's fingers tightened around the bone handle of the axe as he lifted the blade point a little, aware of the open trail behind him, the silence of the forest. Whoever this guy was, he had a feeling that most of the others gave him a little room. It wasn't a reassuring thought.

"What?" The voice was soft, scratchy. "No thanks for saving your hide?"

_Louisiana_, Dean thought. Those softly drawn out vowels that always seemed to have an edge of a French accent to them.

"Sure," he said, as the vamp quarter-turned toward him. "I won't shove this up your ass."

The vampire looked down at the ground and back up to him, exhaling. "Awful strange way to punch your meal ticket, friend." He started to walk, gaze fixed on him as he moved. "I got something you need."

Dean moved as well, keeping the distance between them. The vamp was too cool, too sure of himself. The back of his neck was prickling, the clearing was open, and he felt exposed, the need to keep his attention on the creature opposite making him wonder if this was a trap, an ambush.

"Yeah? What's that?"

The vampire smiled slightly. "A way out."

_Was it just that they couldn't help it_, he wondered, feeling the laugh rise at the blatant outrageousness of the offer. _Or did they really believe all humans were just that stupid_.

"Even a dental apocalypse like you knows there's no such thing," he said, shaking his head.

"There is if you're human," the vampire countered gently, that small smile playing on his mouth again.

Dean felt his laughter drain away. The words shouldn't have had the impact they did on him. He shouldn't have felt that thin shaft of hope at them, lighting up some tiny corner of his gut. He stared at the vamp, his expression hardening.

"God has made it so," the vampire continued in that gravelly southern drawl, inclining his head slightly. "At least, that's the rumour."

"Bull." He didn't believe it. Couldn't afford to believe it. Not now, not from the creature that walked slowly in front of him.

"Suit yourself." The vampire's eyes crinkled up slightly. "Maybe you've gone native." He kept circling slowly. "May be … you like being man meat for every Tom, Dick …and Harry."

He grinned at Dean, his face suddenly open, almost boyish.

Dean stopped walking and looked at him expressionlessly. _Sonofabitch had a small point. Sooner or later, skill wasn't enough. And luck always ran out_. He was a walking dead man if he couldn't find Cas, or a way out on his own. It was just a matter of time. _Didn't make the vamp's words any truer_, he thought.

"Prove it."

"No," the vampire said softly, his expression speculative. "You're either in or you're out."

_This was bullshit_, Dean thought sourly, _pure, straight-from-the-bull shit_. "So you just want to guide me out of Purgatory, out of the goodness of your undead heart?"

"More or less," the vampire said, the humour gone from his face but the speculation still in his eyes.

"What's in it for you?" Dean asked. He could sense a trap; he couldn't see it, not yet. And somewhere, inside, he knew he might have to walk into it anyway, because staying here was not a viable option.

"I'm hopping a ride."

"What?" He hadn't expected that, hadn't even thought of that. In all their research on Purgatory, when they'd been looking for a way to stop someone from breaking in, none of them, not him, not Sam, not even Bobby, had come across any mention of a way out. Or any mention of humans coming and going from the place either.

"It's a human portal, jackass, only humans can pass through," the vampire said sarcastically, eyes narrowing. "I show you a door … you hump my soul to the other side."

_Was that even possible?_ The vamp seemed certain of it. He wasn't sure, he'd come up against stranger things, but … "So you're looking for a soul train?"

"Sure," the vamp said, mouth curving upward slightly. "If that's what you're into."

Dean didn't like the monster's easy amusement. He didn't like the certainty he felt that he was being manipulated into doing something that would work for the vamp but likely leave him dead. He didn't like talking to the fucking thing instead of separating its head from its body. He shunted those thoughts aside for the moment, matching the vamp's smile instead.

"And how do I know this isn't a set-up?" He glanced at the dead vamp lying on the ground. "How do I know I ain't gonna end up like your friend over here?"

The vampire followed his look, his expression indifferent as his gaze passed over the dead monster.

"He was my friend." He looked back at Dean, mouth curling up at one corner. "Now you are."

He inclined his head slightly as he looked at Dean. "First rule of Purgatory, kid. You can't trust nobody."

_Goddamned sonofabitch was playing him_, Dean thought furiously, _smoother than a fucking snake oil salesman_. "You just asked me trust you!"

"You see?" The vampire raised a brow. "You're gettin' it now."

_This was a bad idea_. Dean knew it, felt it in his gut, in his heart. But it looked like it was the only game in town. If it was real. If it was true. The vamp would keep him alive, at least until they got to the door, and with backup, he could search for Cas, he knew. With two of them, they had a good chance of finding the angel. _Well_, he amended unwillingly, _a better chance of finding him_.

He lifted the weapon in his hands, pointing it at the vamp as he walked toward him, the decision made. "First, we find the angel."

The vampire's mouth compressed as he looked away. "Mmm … three's a crowd, Chief."

"Well, hey." Dean smiled humourlessly at the vamp's obvious reluctance, the expression vanishing as he met its eyes. "Either you're in … or you're out."

The vampire smiled, a widening one-sided smile acknowledging the impasse. Dean looked at it, feeling his own sense of satisfaction disappear. He'd agreed to team up with a vampire. To find Cas, to get the hell out of here, but still. _Needs must when the devil drives._ The saying popped into his head and he shrugged inwardly. Maybe so. The vamp hadn't been keen on adding another partner to the deal, understandably since whatever advantage he thought he had would be lost.

He gestured down the trail with the blade and the vamp nodded, the smile in place.

Whatever happened, Dean thought, he had to stay on top of this bastard. Had to watch him. He was pretty sure that the vamp wouldn't risk his soul-ride – _if that part was even true_, a small voice in his head reminded him tartly – but who the fuck knew what other side-plans the monster had. A monster who thought and planned and betrayed his own kind without a thought about it. An unpredictable monster.

Suck it up, he told himself, following the monster down the trail, doors number two and three were locked up tight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

Dean followed the vampire along the path, slightly behind and to one side of him. The creature's weapon was slung through his belt, and he walked with long, swinging strides, looking relaxed and easy despite the fact that he was undoubtedly drawing attention to himself, in the company of the human. Dean wasn't sure if he was a good actor, or if he'd been down here long enough to know when it was safe, and when it was not. Every now and again, the vamp's head would turn, scanning the forest slowly. It was a good reminder to not feel too relaxed, that careful perusal. Not that he was in any danger of relaxing. He could feel the tension in every muscle, the prickle of the nerves at the back of his neck, he'd been living with it for weeks now.

"How'd you get down here anyways?" Benny looked back at him as he walked along the path.

Dean looked at him expressionlessly. "Stood too close to an exploding Dick."

The vampire's brows rose slightly. "That sounds interestin'?"

"It's not," Dean responded shortly. He didn't want conversation with the undead. Not even the undead who was going to get his ass out of here. He wanted to find Cas, find the door and get the hell of out of Dodge before he died in here.

The vampire turned to look at him curiously. "This ain't going to be a stroll through the woods and out we go, y'know."

"Naturally." Dean's mouth twisted. _When was it ever that easy?_

"I'm just sayin', we might as well be cordial since we'll be together for some time," he said, smiling the slow, lazy smile that irritated Dean as much as the casual logic of the vamp's words.

He stopped. "We're not buddies. We're not pals and we never will be. You're a monster, and the only reason you're still alive is because you're the best lead I've got so far to a way out."

"_Cher_, I'm the _only_ lead you got, let's be honest," the vampire said softly. "This is going to take some time, time which we're wasting because you want to find this angel friend of yours."

"That's not negotiable," Dean snapped.

"So you say. But there's things we need to find, need to have to get outta here, and they're not easy things."

"Things like what?"

The three-cornered smile reappeared. "I might be a monster, but I'm not stupid, son. You'll find out when the time comes, and I'm still with you."

Dean scowled at him. "You gotta a name?"

The vampire inclined his head, and the smile lifted higher on one side. "Benny. Benny Robichaud. You?"

"Dean –" he started then stopped, wondering if the vamp knew the name, had heard of it.

"Just Dean?"

"Yeah."

Benny nodded slowly. "Fair enough."

The smile disappeared and his face hardened slightly. "Well, Dean, let's get this straight, here and now. We are walking through the Valley of Death, you and me, and there ain't no one to watch our backs but us. So we're gonna have to trust each other to get through. I die, you're stuck here. You die, I'm stuck here. That's the way I see it."

Dean stared at him, his chest tightening. The vamp was right. He didn't give trust. Ever. He'd trust Benny Robichaud when the vampire earned it. Didn't mean he had to let the monster know that, of course. He pulled in a deep breath, and let his shoulders slump slightly, the point of the stone axe he held dropping toward the ground.

"Yeah, alright."

"Good. Now you're getting' it." Benny turned away from him and started walking down the trail again. Dean watched him walk away for a moment then started walking after him, lengthening his stride as the vampire increased his speed.

* * *

The ravine looked like an open wound in the densely forested slope, bare dark rock protruding from the ground and coated with a rusty-coloured residue. There were few shadows in Purgatory. When it was light, the light never varied, never moved, neither dimmed nor brightened through the hours. When it was dark, it was pitch black.

They could see up the cleft in the hill, see that it widened beyond, see the walls of rock and the sickly, pale green vines that hung down into the narrow trail.

_The place screams 'trap'_, Dean thought, staring at it. He could feel Benny's gaze on him, waiting for a decision.

"It's too enclosed," he said finally, chewing at the corner of his lip.

Benny nodded. "It is. Just about the best possible place for an ambush. Doesn't make a difference. That's the way we have to go."

Dean glanced up the hill beside them. "Why can't we get around it?"

"We can. It'll just add another five days' walking and it'll take us close to a pretty big pack of werewolves, up near the ridge line."

Dean bowed his head, closing his eyes and rubbing them lightly. It'd been three weeks now since he'd heard anything about Cas. The monsters they'd caught had known about the angel, but none had actually seen him. The last one, a narrow-chested, slightly-built man who'd gotten separated from his pack, had told them of following tracks and a scent that had led them here. They could all be lying to him, he thought bitterly, sending him around in endless circles, looking forward to taking another crack at him, the vamp crouched beside him included.

"All right." He looked up and nodded. "Let's get it over with."

He didn't look at Benny but knew the vamp would be smiling. They rose quietly from the side of the trail and walked into the narrow passage, feeling a slight temperature drop as the walls rose to either side of them.

When it opened out, they stopped, looking around. The rock walls were just as high here, but the ravine had widened to almost sixty yards, belling out in a curve in both directions. The near-vertical walls were smooth and paler, and dozens of cave mouths, large and small, pocked their surfaces, reminding Dean of Swiss cheese. In front of the nearest cave, a wide rock ledge jutted out. On the ledge, fifteen or twenty children stared silently back at them, eyes wide in grubby faces.

"Are those kids?" he said, his voice little more than a breath in the stifling silence.

Benny looked at them, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I doubt it."

They looked like kids, Dean thought uneasily, knobbly knees, patched clothing, smooth skin and rounded cheeks.

"Are you here to help us?" The voice came from behind them, _right_ behind them, and the hunter and the vampire spun around, seeing the little girl standing there, weapons checked mid-swing.

How the _hell_ did she do that without the vamp noticing, Dean wondered, staring down at her, his heart slamming against his ribs. She was maybe seven or eight years old, bright gold hair in twisted ringlets that fell over her shoulders, deep blue eyes wide and fringed with long gold lashes. The almost doll-like prettiness was marred by the dirt that coated her skin, and the blood smeared across the white dress she wore.

"Well, _chère_, that depends on what kind of help you need," Benny said quietly, looking intently at her.

"We're hungry. We need food," another child called from the ledge. Dean looked back at them, his eyes meeting Benny's, both understanding in the same instant.

The girl leapt at the vampire, and Dean grabbed her arms, pulling her off Benny and pitching her across the ground as the rest of the children jumped from the ledge, swarming toward them. More children came from the other cave mouths, scrambling down the rock face and racing across the bare earth, giving him the disorienting impression of an ant's nest that had been unwittingly disturbed. His fingers closed around the bone handle of the axe and he pulled it free of his belt, dragging the silver knife from its sheath at the same time as he and Benny moved back to back and the children enclosed them.

They _were_ like ants … soldier ants … uncaring of the weapons the adults carried, paying no attention to the children who fell, skulls cracked, gaping wounds in their bodies, trodden on as the rest tried to get to the men.

Dean felt his stomach heaving as he watched the sharp edge of the stone bury itself in the head of a five-year-old boy, whose large hazel eyes stared up at him, glazing in death. He turned away, pulling the axe from the skull and swinging it in a broad, flat arc, scattering and sweeping the children aside. He felt small hands close around his legs and kicked furiously at them, his jaws clenched together as his boots crunched through bone. Two more were on his back, and he could feel them tearing at his jacket, dragging down the collar, their nails scratching the skin at the back of his neck. Another jumped onto him, and he felt his balance shift, frantically trying to free his leg before he was pulled over by the sheer numbers.

The weight vanished from his back, and he heard the vampire's deep snarl, the abruptly cut-off shrieks of the children. Dean lunged forward, stabbing and swinging the axe, ignoring the sounds, the feel of it biting into the small bodies.

"Dean!"

Benny's voice cut through the screams and shrill high-pitched shrieks around him and he turned fast, seeing the vampire disappear under a dozen children, his teeth bloodied and pointed, his weapon cast away. He swung the axe, trying to clear a path to the vampire, who was being dragged further and further from the centre of the open space, toward one of the larger cave mouths. Higher on the side of the ravine wall, a still, watching figure caught his attention and he flicked a look upward, seeing a woman standing there, hands folded together as she watched.

_Changelings_, he thought, _and that's Mom_. He kicked out again and broke into a run, heading for the wall. He could hear the vampire yelling, his voice riddled with pain and it drove him on, outdistancing the children in a few yards, throwing himself to the first ledge and wondering what the hell he could use to set fire to the woman above him.

Behind him he could hear the thunder of their small feet, racing across after him, seeing too late where he was going, what he was after. He shoved his knife back in its sheath and reached out for the wall, his fingers finding handholds, the adrenalin flooding his body giving him the strength to haul himself from one to the next. He reached the next ledge and rolled over onto it, glancing back down at the children who were climbing now, fast and sure on the rock faces they knew.

The woman was on the ledge above, and there was a narrow twisting crevice at one end of the ledge he was on. He ran for it, jumping halfway up, hands finding the protrusions and rough edges he needed to keep going, hearing the patter on the ledge behind him, waiting to feel the clutch of small hands around him again.

Coming onto the next ledge, chest heaving, sweat pouring from him, he saw the woman withdraw into the darkness of the cave. He felt for the Zippo in his jacket pocket as he staggered to his feet and ran for the cave mouth. The lighter was still working after his full body immersion in the river, but without anything to burn he wasn't going to get anywhere near close enough to be able to set the bitch on fire.

He was forced to stop at the cave's entrance, the change even between the dull light of Purgatory and the darkness blinding him. He heard the scrape of her feet over the rock as she came, and he twisted around, the stone axe swinging out, its whistle through the air, and the jump in his hands as it hit something softer than rock.

She hissed loudly at him and he followed the sound, closing his eyes and willing them to adjust faster. In the light that spilled along the ground, he could see the remains of a fire, so old even the scent of it had gone. A small pile of branches lay against the side of the cave and he cut across to them, pulling out the lighter and watching the flame consume the dry, brittle twig ends enthusiastically. He shifted fast across the cave as the woman went for the mouth, blocking her way while the flames on the branch fed and grew, throwing their shapes into wildly flickering shadows on the cave wall.

The woman had stopped, staring at him, her mouth open as she panted. Middle-aged and comfortably plump, the dirty and stained clothing was the only thing differentiating her from any one of a million suburban mothers in the land of his birth. And the expression in her eyes, he realised belatedly, looking into the rage that filled them.

Crackling fiercely along the length of the branch now, the fire lit up almost the entire cave, and he pushed her back, away from the entrance, acutely aware that he was running out of time, that those kids would be here any second and he had to torch the mother to get rid of the children. He couldn't think of the vampire, dragged away after saving his neck, possibly consumed already.

The changeling mother darted to the left and he followed without thought, sweeping the burning branch at her, shedding several half-burned twigs in the movement. He felt hands on his back, on his legs, pulling him back, digging into his skin, his clothes. The lit twigs fell into the pile of kindling behind the woman and caught immediately.

She turned her head, her eyes widening at the fire starting behind her.

Dean hunched up and took a long stride forward, ramming the branch into her chest, feeling the end pierce her body as easily as if it'd been a knife, not a brittle, burning brand. Her head snapped back to him and her mouth opened wide in a wailing scream as the fire seemed to explode inside of her. He fell back, throwing an arm over his face and rolling away, feeling the children's hands suddenly gone from his clothes, from his skin, heat roasting him. A billowing cloud of black smoke rolled up and across the cave roof, and disappeared through the entrance, and the last of the embers of the branch broke apart and lay glowing on the dirt floor.

He lowered his arm, feeling the tightness of the skin along his forearm, over his wrist and the back of his hand. _Burns. Well worth it, to get rid of the bitch_. He rolled onto his feet, and picked up the stone axe, striding fast out of the cave, his eyes narrowing against the brighter light. Getting down was easier than going up, and he shot across the clear space, looking wildly for the cave mouth where he'd last seen the vamp being dragged.

Benny lay at the edge of the light near the entrance, the round sets of teeth marks clear on the big joints of the spine, and over his shoulders, elbows and wrists where his jacket and shirt had been pulled away. Dean knelt beside him, looking at them, starting back when the vampire opened his eyes and looked up at him.

"They take it all?"

Dean shifted to his feet, holding out his hand. "Get up and we'll see."

Benny gripped the offered hand, wincing as he got his feet under him and stood. "Legs are okay. The rest feels like it's been set in concrete."

"Maybe skip the tai-chi for today then," Dean offered. The vampire looked questioningly at him and he rolled his eyes as he turned away. "Forget it, after your time."

He took a couple of steps and turned back. "Can you walk?"

Benny nodded. "Yeah. How'd you take 'em all out like that?"

"Set the mother on fire," Dean answered absently, looking around the cave.

"Jus' like that?"

He heard the edge in the vampire's voice and looked around. "Read about it in a Reader's Digest … also after your time."

Benny nodded slowly. "If you say so."

"We should get away from here, find someplace you can rest a bit further up trail."

"Yeah, we should," Benny agreed, wincing again as he tried to move his arms and the joint's ball and socket ground painfully together. "Nothing here is as it seems, is it?"

Dean glanced back at him, hearing the comment and under that, another meaning. It wasn't the first time he'd saved a vampire from death. But it was the first time he'd been worried about one.

"No."

* * *

Dean watched the small fire, sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor beside it. On the other side, Benny was … not sleeping, he thought, but resting anyway, the vampire's eyes closed and his body still, waiting for the wounds inflicted by the changelings to heal over, for the joint fluid to replenish itself, helped along by Purgatory's odd power.

He'd been right, Dean thought. Even if they could survive alone, there wouldn't be much point to it. They needed each other to get out of here, and to get out in one piece. The vamp's unthinking action today had surprised him. Maybe it was just Benny protecting his asset, but it hadn't felt that way, not at the time. It'd felt like having a real back up, someone who was watching out for him.

That feeling had been a part of what had driven him to kill the mother, he knew. Not all of it, or even most of it, but a part of it. To save the vampire. He wasn't a big fan of gratitude, of debt owed. He liked the scales to be balanced. Kind of an eye for an eye thing, he thought, a slight smile lifting one side of his mouth. But something had changed today, a small, almost unnoticeable shift in the way they saw each other. He wasn't sure that was a good thing.

Responsibility, loyalty … and their unpleasant love-child, guilt … those were the things that drove him. He knew that. Had known it for a long time now, although it had taken him a while to figure it out. And that was fine, he was cool with it, most of the time. But they all had hidden edges and he already had one set of deep scars when one had turned, and cut him right down to the bone.

He rubbed a hand distractedly over his face, feeling the rasp of stubble against the palm. _So you don't put your full trust in the guy_, he thought, _no problem. Just enough to do the job_.

Looking down at his arms, he could see that the burns were already healing, the shiny, tightness of the skin had softened, and the hairs were growing back. There probably wouldn't be anything to see by the morning. He flexed the hand and made a fist, tightening it until the knuckles stood out white under the skin. There was no loss of movement or strength.

He tossed a couple more sticks onto the fire, the flames leaping brightly as they caught, and the soft sigh of the burned branches crumbling underneath them the only sound in the small cave.

"Relax."

Dean looked over at the vampire, watching his head turn slightly, the eyes open a little.

"You're gonna burn out, livin' on your nerves like this," Benny said softly. "We'll be alright for tonight, nothin's gonna come through that pass."

"How'd you –" Dean frowned at him.

The vampire smiled. "I can hear your heart, Dean … speedin' up an' slowin' down, with every worry you're turnin' over in your head. Give it a rest, especially whatever it is you can't do anything about right now."

"I like worrying," Dean said sourly.

Benny's smile widened. "Maybe you do, but this is a long road. You better pace yourself."

* * *

Dean glanced up at the sky. He was getting a sense for nightfall here now, and he thought they didn't have much time to find somewhere to dig in for the night. The forest was more open, the trees smaller and climbing one wasn't an option. He felt Benny's hand touch his shoulder lightly and turned his head. The vampire lay full length along the slope, the dark colours of his clothes fading into the dark log he lay beside. Dean ducked his head, looking under the rotten end.

A couple of hundred yards down the long shallow slope there was a open area, not exactly a clearing, the space was taken up by boulders, heaped and thrown on each other. He turned his head slightly to the vampire and let one eyelid drop in acknowledgement. Maybe not as protected as a cave, but they would have solid rock at their backs and above their heads, and in this part of the forest that was what they needed.

They'd seen four figures, ghosting through the thin mists that morning. Benny had told him they were sirens. He hadn't been able to make out any detail on them, they'd moved almost silently through the dim shadows of the trees, but it didn't matter. A siren had to be brought down with their own poison, and the only way to get it was to offer themselves as bait. It had seemed a better idea to keep their heads down and let them go by.

There were a few monsters in here that he couldn't kill … not with what he had on him. It meant that they were skirting areas where the vamp said those creatures lived, taking longer to get through the land, longer to find Cas. He watched the boulders fixedly, his thoughts on the angel. Cas must've been taken by something, that first night. Something that he might've killed but that had prevented him from getting back. He didn't even know if Cas had his powers down here, or if he'd been fighting as an ordinary man.

"No movement," Benny's voice ghosted against his ear and he dropped the eyelid again, easing himself back out from under the log and rolling to his feet. He followed Benny down the slope, both of them searching the trees to either side, stopping frequently to listen, and wait, to draw an attack if there was one around. The forest was silent and they picked their way down to the boulders.

The first opening was too small, for either one of them. Benny shook his head and walked around the pile of rocks, his weapon lifting and waving a moment later from behind a huge slab-sided boulder. Dean followed him around the edge of the rock and saw him sitting with his back against the stone. He crouched down and crawled in, looking around the tight quarters as he turned himself around. They had enough room to sit, and the wall behind them had a slight incline. _Be just like sleeping in the car_, he thought, mouth twisting up. Outside the narrow entrance, the sky had deepened just a shade more, he thought.

They could've kept going, walking through the night. But it was riskier than they needed. And it did take its toll eventually, the constant movement, the constant tension.

He shifted slightly, finding a more comfortable position. "I'll take first."

Benny glanced at him. "It's barely dark, think I can close my eyes yet?"

The corner of Dean's mouth lifted. "Thought you were supposed to pace yourself?"

"See, you're getting' it." The vampire smiled. "Why're you looking for an angel, Dean?"

Dean looked down. It wasn't like he could hide the truth once they found Cas anyway. "We came in together. He's a … friend."

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know," Dean glanced at him, shrugging. "One minute he was telling me we were in Purgatory. We could see the eyes in the darkness, all around us, and then I turned around and he was gone."

"He left you?"

Dean frowned. "I don't know."

"Doesn't sound like a good friend to me, _cher_," Benny said softly.

Dean was silent for a moment. He didn't know what had happened. But Cas wouldn't have left him, not to die. They had a friendship, a trust. It'd been shaken, but it was still there. He stared into the darkness. "If you're taking first, I'm gonna close my eyes."

He heard the vamp's soft sigh beside him. "Sure."

* * *

"Dean," the vampire whispered in his ear some time later, and he opened his eyes. "Company."

Dean felt his eyes widen in the blackness. There wasn't a hope of him being able to see anything, not in this hole, not in the dead of night in Purgatory. There were no light sources.

"Light it up?" he asked softly. He felt the shake of Benny's head through the vamp's shoulder against his own.

He heard it then, a slurring, slithering sound in the dirt outside of the hole. He closed his eyes, trying to find a picture to go with that sound, but the only thing that came into his mind was an image of a monstrous snake. _No snakes in Purgatory_, he reminded himself quickly, feeling a trickle of cold sweat slip down his neck.

The noise came again, closer to them, right at the entrance, he thought. His fingers felt in his pocket for the lighter, the other hand tightening around the bone handle of the axe by his leg. Something moved in the darkness and Benny shouted, thrusting his improvised mace at the hole near their feet.

A shriek filled the small space and with it a gust of breath, and Dean knew where he'd smelled that putrescent odour before.

"Ghouls!" he shouted, kicking at the hands he felt closing around his ankles. "Benny, decapitation's the only –"

The sharp yank on his legs pulled him down and the back of his head smacked hard against the stone behind them, cutting him off and knocking what he was trying to tell the vamp out of his head. He swung the axe awkwardly in the small space, too aware of the vampire beside him, felt it hit something down by his feet, then the hands tightened and he was pulled further out, the lighter forgotten as he scrabbled for something to hold on to that would keep him from being dragged out.

Behind him he heard the deep-throated snarl of the vampire and one set of hands disappeared from his arm, a crunching noise filling his ears on that side. Something shrieked again, and he tried to roll over, kicking out again at the hands that were still locked around his boots.

The third pull was stronger and he was half on his side, his hand, wrapped around the bone, crushed under his own weight as he tried desperately to free it, and his legs, at the same time. He was out of the hole, and it was still pitch black, but he could hear a lot more of the strange slurred sounds around him now.

"Goddamnit!" He heard Benny's voice somewhere behind his head. "Dean, where the fuck are you?"

"Here, I'm out –"

The rock struck the side of his head, over and behind the temple and his eyes widened for a moment as he saw a field of stars against the blackness. Then the blackness returned.

* * *

_Keep your eyes shut_, Dean thought when consciousness gradually began to filter back. He could hear movement around him, could feel pain, in his shoulder, along the insides of his forearms. Soft muttering to his left, someone – _something_ – close by. And further away, more voices, barely voices, murmuring continuously, the sound like a machine heard at a distance.

_Ghouls_. The memory of the foetid breath came back, along with the memory of being dragged out of the small hole they'd been in. _Benny_. Was the vampire dead? He couldn't remember how many of ghouls there'd been, wasn't sure that he'd known how many, a confused auditory memory of a lot of voices around him, a tactile memory of a lot of hands gripping his arms and legs and pulling him out.

Without the vamp, there was no way out. He had to get free, get free and find him.

He opened an eye and closed it again in frustration. It was still night in Purgatory, still blacker than a crow in a coal mine. He was just going to have to rely on the rest of his senses to do this.

He lifted his arm slowly, and felt liquid run down his arm and into his hand. He didn't need the rich, metallic smell to tell him it was blood, his own. He supposed he should be grateful they hadn't just started chowing down on him, but depending on how much blood he'd lost, fighting his way out might prove to be problematic. He could feel the heaviness of his arm. The slow, steady beat of his heart he'd put down to being out of it for awhile, but it might not be that simple.

He froze as the murmur nearby got louder, relaxing minutely when it seemed to drift away, his ears tracking the sound as it moved around him and toward the other voices that were still audible, somewhere off to the right. _One way or another, you're going to be fighting pretty much blind_, he thought tiredly. _Might as well get this show on the road_.

He rolled onto his side and felt the edge of whatever it was he was lying on, under him then gone, his breath huffing out as he hit the ground. He was weak, a lot weaker, he realised, pushing against the dirt to get his feet under him, reaching up behind for something to help him. His hand found the edge and he pulled, grimacing and damping down the shock of how hard it was to do it. He could feel the blood spilling down his arms faster now, his heart and gravity doing the job of the ghouls for them. He felt automatically for the sheath, shaking his head slightly as he realised that the belt had gone. They had to be around here somewhere but how long could he stagger about, arms outstretched before the goddamn flesh-eaters noticed he was gone?

The light, when it arced out of the blackness and hit the ground was almost as blinding as the darkness had been, and he turned away, lifting his arm over his eyes. The burning branch had hit the centre of a clear stretch of ground, and as he cautiously opened his eyes, slitting them against the firelight, he could see he was leaning against a smoothed rock table, its surface black and rust in the flickering firelight. He pushed off it, and turned, seeing another two branches curving out of the night, their ends lit up, throwing a bright golden light over the ghouls huddled together at the end of the clearing, transfixed by the sight of the branches thudding onto the ground. _Benny_.

_There_. He tore his eyes away from the light and the monsters, scanning the ground and seeing his gear a few feet away, piled on a low stone ledge. He tried to take a step and almost fell, grabbing at the table beside him to keep himself upright. Lost a helluva lot of blood, he thought woozily. _Just get to the stuff and get the fuck out of here_.

The table's end was a few feet short of the ledge and he leaned on it, staring fixedly at the stone axe, his jacket and belt, the rough sharkskin hilt of his knife just visible under a fold of the leather. _Get moving_, he thought. _Get moving and get your weapons_.

He took a step and felt the world sway sickening under his feet. _C'mon, one more!_ His fucking knees were buckling and some kind of grey mist was coming into the clearing, surrounding him.

_Straighten up, Dean! Get moving! Just a few more yards, you can do it, son, kick it in the ass!_

In times of great need, it was still his father's voice he heard in his head. The man who'd raised him. The man who'd trained him. The memory swamped him, the steep hill, dry brown chaparral on either side, the sun beating down and turning the gravel road into an oven, the weight of the pack on his back and his sweat running into his eyes, blinding him as he stumbled upwards. His father had been behind him, exhorting him to get going, telling him he was almost there, and he'd fallen to one knee, vision greying out. _Straighten up, Dean! Get moving! Just a few more yards, you can do it, son, kick it in the ass!_

He had. Somehow. He'd gotten back up and crested the hill and nearly fallen headlong as the ground dipped down on the other side, but he'd kept upright and managed to get down the hill to the cool, green shade of the trees that surrounded the cabin, collapsing onto a chair on the wide porch, the pack straps cutting into his shoulders, and sucking down the ice cold water his father had handed him first, then the cold beer afterwards, John's eyes had crinkled up, filled with … what had that been … pride? Satisfaction? Admiration? He couldn't remember that part anymore.

He shook his head and took another couple of steps, falling onto his hands on the ledge and reaching for his jacket, pulling it on slowly and feeling the sleeves soaking through with his blood. He grabbed the belt and the axe. He could hear behind him, the ghouls' shrieks and screams, and under that the furious growling of the vampire, over a steady series of wet noises and thuds and cracks. He turned around and stared at the scene, out of someone's idea of _Inferno_, with the monster moving faster than could be believed, the sharpened edge of the mace slicing and sending heads bouncing across the packed dirt ground, all lit up by the burning fires in the lurid shades of hell.

Benny looked up as the last head fell, staring across the flames at him. The vamp's mouth and chin and throat were red with blood, his hands coated in gore that looked like long gloves. Dean managed a half-smile at him before he dropped to his knees, then fell to the ground.

* * *

Crackling. The soft sigh as something fell and a brighter light leapt behind his eyelids. Dean opened them, looking around. The cave wasn't large, but it was bigger than the hole they'd started the night in. The small fire didn't throw out much heat, that wasn't why they had them. It provided light in the darkness, and he thought that the vampire knew that it also gave him a feeling of safety, of normalcy, however misplaced that might be. _Just being able to see clearly was a bonus_, he thought.

"How long was I out?" His voice sounded cracked, raspy as he looked over the fire.

Benny turned around, one cheek lifting as his mouth curled up. "'Bout four hours now." He shook his head slowly. "You were near as white as me by the time I got you back here. Lost a lot of blood."

Dean nodded. He remembered that. The vampire shifted, moving closer to him.

"Might stay here for a couple of days, make sure it all gets replaced before we tackle the next party."

"We don't have that much time," Dean said, looking at the fire. "I'll be fine in the morning."

Benny laughed softly. "S'almost mornin' now, _cher_."

"Thanks for saving my hide," Dean looked up at him, his expression wry.

"Not gonna let you die, now am I, Dean?" Benny said, his smile widening a little. "Not when you're my only way out."

"Yeah. But thanks anyway." He could see behind the gentle mockery. He remembered bits of the previous night. Flashes. Images. The expression on the vampire's face when he'd seen him, on the other side of the clearing. Benny hadn't just been worried about his ride home. He looked away, down to his arms and the fine white lines that ran from elbow to the inside of his wrists.

"How many were there?"

"Of the ghouls?" The vampire turned away, getting comfortable on the other side of the fire. "I didn't stop to count 'em. I think you took out a couple when they were dragging you out, before they hit you." He looked at Dean and tapped the side of his head with one finger. The placement roughly corresponded with the dull ache Dean could feel on the side of his head. "I got one inside of that hole we was in. Might have been another eight or nine when I found you."

"How _did_ you find me?" His brows drew together slightly as he remembered the darkness, the near-silence of the group.

Benny laughed again, this time the sound was bigger, filled with amusement. "Oh man, you don't think I can follow a human blood trail?"

_Figured_, Dean thought. Pretty much every monster here would be able to do that. And the vamps better than most. It raised another question he'd wanted to ask.

"You seen most of what's here?"

"Most of the … species … you mean?" Benny looked over him. Dean nodded.

"Seen a few," the vampire said, leaning back against the wall, his eyes half-closing. "When I first got here, I hooked up with a group of vampires, they call it a nest." He glanced at Dean, who nodded. "There were maybe fifteen, sixteen of us, hunting together. Saw werewolf and some kind of tall creature, real long arms and legs and a greyish skin – one of the others told me it was a wendigo." He drawled out the word slowly and Dean's lips compressed at the automatic impulsion to correct the vamp's pronunciation.

"I don't know what all of them are called, up in the real world," Benny continued. "The oldest vampire I met down here said he was made in the eleventh century, but he said there were older ones here too." He rubbed a hand over his jaw, scratching out the bits of blood that still clung to the stubble. "He said that every monster here was a human once, that was why they were here, because their souls didn't belong in either Heaven or Hell. But he said that there were other things as well … he didn't know what they were. Jus' tole me to keep away from them, far away."

_Leviathan?_ Dean closed his eyes. He'd thought, they'd thought … that Cas had taken them all.

"You seen anything like that in the last year or so?" he asked casually. The vampire turned to look at him, and smiled slowly.

"Dean, you think I keep track of the date down here?"

He lifted a shoulder apologetically. "Sorry, guess not."

"There are rules, some rules, to this place. For the monsters. I ain't sure about humans – or angels."

"What kind of rules?"

"You can't die, not really. You can get torn apart. But in a few days, you usually come to, somewhere else, mostly back to normal. You can feel … pain, fear, anger – all those emotions that you can feel up there. But none of the good ones, not really. If you kill here, another monster, or whatever else you might find, you get a solid blast of energy, keeps you going. If you don't kill, well, you don't die but you get weaker and then it's easy to get picked off."

Dean nodded. Monsters preying on each other was how they'd figured it.

"When the – when I left the nest, I started exploring. I've been through most of this place, seen most of the territory. It's infinite and endless but it's not … not really. You keep walking in a straight line and you get … shoved, kind of, back to the other side." He stopped, eyes narrowing as he thought about that. "That's not really what happens but that's what it feels like."

"How'd you hear about the door?" Dean turned his head, shifting onto his shoulder.

Benny nodded, looking back at him, eyes half-closed. "A while ago, a long time ago, a bunch of humans came in. Not like you did. They walked in, in their bodies, brought all sorts of stuff with them."

Dean felt his brows rise. "Walked in?"

The vampire heard the disbelief in his voice and smiled dryly. "Yeah. I didn't see it, didn't see how they got in or where the doorway was, but when the rumours started, of real flesh down here, I went to have a look." He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. "They weren't hard to find. That smell, y'know, doesn't smell like anything else. And they left a trail – bodies, the monsters that thought they were going to be easy. They weren't easy. They had guns, among other things, silver rounds, iron … all kinds of things."

The firelight played over his face and Dean watched as expressions flitted across his features, too fast to decipher.

"I watched 'em, watched them looking for something. Spent a long time watching them. I could get close and I heard things. Things about the power of the doorways, and the way that the planes all touched, somewhere. I didn't get much of an idea of what they were looking for – a way into someplace else, it sounded like – but they talked of the way out. And they had a book, like a book of spells or incantations or something. I got one look at it." He opened his eyes and looked at Dean. "Nearly got killed for the trouble, but I saw a spell in there, to take a soul from here and take it back to the real world."

"What happened to the humans?" Dean looked at the fire. He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to get in here, coming here deliberately. But if there were other portals, to other places … he'd seen people do more stupid things for less.

"They're still here, most of them, I think. They took over a high valley, on the other side. They –," he hesitated, and Dean looked at him.

"What?"

"They hunt, I think. Hunt the monsters," he said quietly. "I haven't seen it for myself. Heard about it though."

Dean frowned. If they were hunters, why the hell weren't they topside, taking care of business there? There'd been a strange edge to Benny's voice, talking about them. He couldn't quite get what it was, but it had sounded like uneasiness.

"The rumour is that they catch them and torture them, for sport." Benny's head inclined toward him. "An' when they do it, the monsters don't come back. They're just gone."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

In the uppermost branches of the canopy of needles, the view across the hills and valleys, the ridges and distant mountains, was unparalleled. Dean looked around them carefully, trying to pinpoint the landmarks that would be visible from the ground, to get an idea in his head of how the landscape was laid out. He could see the river they'd come from, and another one, smaller and almost hidden in the deepening folds of the land, ahead of them.

Benny gestured to the left. "We need to be careful around there."

Dean turned to follow his gaze, seeing a maze of narrow valleys interconnected along a sharp ridge line that itself dropped down to the river below. The slopes were thick with trees, the valleys looked dark, even in the lacklustre light of the day.

"What's there?"

"Vampire nest," Benny answered shortly. "Not a big one, especially. But not really the kind of trouble we're looking for right now."

"You don't want to kill your own kind?" Dean glanced at him.

The vampire was silent for a moment. "I'm not worried what I kill, so long as I get out of here, _cher_."

Dean looked back at the dark hillsides. The section of the forest that the skinwalker had heard that the angel frequented had been empty. They'd found one churned up mess of ground, but little else there, and the trail for Cas had gone cold again. Below them, the woods stretched out, older, darker, the trees bigger and the undergrowth reduced. In the soft dirt of the trail near a small spring, they'd seen tracks, the spread toes and claw marks of a werewolf. Just the one. He thought it was time to find another snitch.

"If we can find that werewolf, we won't need to go near it," he said with a shrug. He felt Benny's gaze on him and looked at the vampire.

"You're not getting to like this, are you, Dean?" Benny asked softly.

"Did you like killing innocent people to survive?"

The vampire looked away. "That was to survive."

Dean snorted. "This is to find my friend, and make sure we all survive." He looked at the vampire's profile, clear against the grey light. "And no one here is innocent."

He gripped the branch above him and swung off the one he was sitting on, his gaze brushing over Benny as he dropped. He'd been … getting harder, he thought as he climbed down. They were monsters, all of them, and it wasn't difficult to justify what he was doing to them. Did he like doing it? He didn't know. He hadn't thought of that at all. He just needed the information and he knew he'd do anything to get it.

* * *

They picked up the trail half a mile from the lookout, the tracks leading down the slope, the creature on its own, moving fast and unencumbered. Benny had asked him what he'd done, on earth, in the real world, a day or two ago, and he'd diverted the discussion with a quickly fabricated story of trapping along the Canadian border. He'd had the impression that the vampire had only half-believed him. Trapping explained how he could track. It didn't really cover knowing how to kill most of the monsters they'd come across in the last few weeks.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the vampire. They'd been working together pretty well. He didn't want to jeopardise that with the risky confession of a lifetime spent hunting monsters, spent sending them down here. The vampire's sense of irony was well-developed, and some of the monsters he'd killed in the real world might have told Benny about Dean and Sam Winchester. Some of the monsters who'd been Benny's friends.

He didn't think it would affect the vampire's desire to escape. But it would make it harder, maybe.

"Dean."

Benny's voice broke through the uncomfortable thoughts and Dean turned back to him with a feeling of relief. The vampire was standing next to a big tree trunk, staring down at it, his expression one of bemusement. Dean walked over to him and looked down.

The chain was old, heavily coated in rust, but thick, the links two inches long and the gauge almost half an inch. It was wrapped around the tree, the loose ends in heaps to either side. He raised an eyebrow at the vampire.

Benny shrugged, smiling slightly. "No idea, _cher_."

"We could use this," Dean said thoughtfully, looking back down at it. "Too heavy to carry around."

"Got that right," Benny agreed, looking at the length of it.

They picked up the fresh tracks of the werewolf four hours later.

Dean crouched beside the indentation, his fingers gently brushing over the hollow in the soil. He looked up at Benny and lifted his axe, pointing away down the narrow path between the trees. The vampire nodded. Werewolves weren't exactly models of cleanliness and the vamp's sense of smell was as acute in death as it had been in life.

He was getting to his feet when he heard the rustle from the undergrowth behind them. He caught a confused glimpse of several figures, dark in the shadows under the trees, and Benny, spinning around to him, his weapon raised above his head, then the vampire slammed it into the side of his head and he was knocked sideways, struggling to keep a hold of consciousness, his fingers trying to tighten on the axe in his hand.

The figures emerged into the lighter clearing and he squinted at them, seeing the mouths full of fangs, the white skin and vividly bright eyes, forcing his arm to straighten out as he tried to get to his feet.

"Dear mama, is that human blood I can smell?"

"Benny, long time no see."

"Don't even think of touching him," Benny's voice, hard and cold. "Think I'm gonna waste a pure human on the likes of you?"

"Selfish to keep him all to yourself." The dark-skinned vamp walked around Benny, peering down at Dean.

"He's not for me," Benny said tersely. "I was taking him to Raoul."

Dean got a knee underneath himself, looking up at Benny, his eyes widening.

"You take him back to the nest, Benny and we'll be rationed to a thimbleful each."

"Then that's what we'll get, Frank."

_Sonofabitch_. The thought swam through the rolling waves of nausea Dean could feel rising from his stomach and into his throat.

"You son of –" he stood up, weaving slightly. He didn't see the second swing of the vampire's weapon, or hear the hard clunk it made against the back of his skull. He dropped to the ground limply, the stone axe falling from his hand.

* * *

His head was pounding, the ache synchronous with the pumping of his heart, and the churning of his stomach. He'd been hit in the head too many times in the last few weeks.

He was lying on the ground, hands bound behind him, feet tightly trussed together. He opened an eye cautiously, rewarded with the view of a smooth rock wall a few inches from his face. Rolling over was out of the question, both from a strategic and physical standpoint.

He could hear voices, behind him, not very far away, and he could smell the sweetish scent of the vampires, a mix of rotting flowers and decomposing flesh that never failed to make him want to heave whatever he'd last eaten. Nothing in his stomach now, just the roiling sickness of a new head injury.

_The vamp had been playing him, the whole goddamned time_, he thought furiously. No wonder the others treated him with respect. A vampire who could lead his victims right to the nest, filling them with the hope of a real escape like a fucking Pied Piper. He shoved the memories of the conversations, of the moments he'd thought he was seeing the man the monster had been originally, aside.

"It's been a long time, Benny," the voice was out of place, smoothly cultured, a tenor with a rounded, resonant timbre that made the words seem more important than they actually were. Dean closed his eyes and lay still. "Where on earth have you been all this time?"

"Around," Benny said shortly. "Hunting."

"Hmm-mmm … and you've decided to rejoin the flock now?"

"I come bearing gifts, Raoul," Benny's voice was light. Dean felt a toe nudge his back. "Thought this would smooth over any … bad memories."

"A human. Yes, I could forgive a lot for this, Benny."

Dean felt the vampire behind him, felt the fingers close around his shoulder, and pull him over. Smelled the creature's reeking odour and forced himself to remain still.

"But it's not quite enough," Raoul looked up at Benny, a smile in his voice. "Not for what you did."

"Didn't see any of these bringing you a human kill," Benny's voice held a slight edge now. "Don't push too hard, Raoul."

Dean heard the vampire's voice get louder as he leaned closer. He opened one eye a fraction, seeing them, Benny leaning low over Raoul, the leader of the nest looking up at him coldly.

"They are loyal to me, Benny, not to you, not anymore," the leader said viciously. "Try having a showdown with me and you'll be on the dinner table with the human."

"A showdown, Raoul?" Benny smiled, his voice dropping to a soft croon. "Oh no, _cher_, I've got a better idea than that."

Dean saw Benny's hand rise, swinging around, his bone-handled stone axe in it. The sharp, chipped edge took the leader's head off just above the collarbones with barely a sound.

"You awake?"

Dean opened his eyes and looked into the faded cornflower blue eyes of the vampire.

"Time we got down to business," Benny said softly, slicing through the bindings at his wrists and ankles. "Can you fight?"

"Give me my fucking axe."

The vampire's face creased into the slow smile as he handed it to Dean. "The nest first. You can take a swing at me later, _cher_."

Dean nodded, getting to his knees. His head was still pounding and he felt as if something around the five-ton mark had rolled over him. He looked around the nest, a wide cavern tucked under the side of the hill, noting the position of every vamp there. There were maybe six in the immediate vicinity. He put the point of the axe on the ground and pushed himself up.

"After you."

The headache had gone, or been shunted aside, as he swept the axe at the first vampire. He saw the head fly free and was on the second, the mix of anger and pain, confusion and disgust with the creatures driving him on, driving out thought and reason.

There are times in combat, when instinct, the deepest part of the mind, and the physical body act in perfect accord, anticipating the moves of the opponent so precisely that it almost seems as if they are co-operating in their own demise. It didn't happen often, at least, it didn't happen often to Dean, but when it came, everything else disappeared and he moved through the vampires like a ghost, the clumsy and unbalanced weapon he held finding the exact target each and every time, able to see which way the vamps would move, how they'd try to evade him, or attack him, despite their greater speed, their greater strength. Each move and the chipped edge of the stone blade was already there, cold blood spraying and gouting and gushing from their wounds, their heads claimed one after the other.

He stopped in the middle of the cave when no more came to challenge him, head bowed, chest heaving, the axe point resting on the ground in front of him. Benny looked around at the dead and nodded in satisfaction, walking over to the man.

"That was impressive," he said, grinning at Dean.

Dean raised his head slowly, looking at him. The right hook came out of nowhere, slamming into Benny's face under the cheekbone and sending him flying.

* * *

"There were too many of them and they had the drop on us," Benny said reasonably, probing gingerly at the swelling on his face. They were several miles from the nest, a small clearing in the thick forest. The firelight flickered over the gnarled bark of the trees surrounding them. "It was the only thing I could think of that would keep you alive till a better opportunity came up."

Dean looked at him sourly. "You fucking hit me. Twice. I'm gonna need a brain transplant when I get out of here."

"Barely touched you." Benny shook his head. "And it worked."

Dean scowled and turned away. The pain had gone, it was still a little tender but another night and that would be gone too. He couldn't tell the vampire what had really bothered him.

"That was the nest you said you hooked up with, when you first got here?"

Benny nodded.

Dean stretched out on the soft dirt, pillowing his head on his arm. "How long were you with them, before you left?"

"A long time. I don't know. Maybe twenty or thirty years."

He'd killed them, those vamps he'd spent that time with. Killed them without a second's regret, Dean thought, chewing the edge of his lip. What did that mean? Was it loyalty? Or was it expedience? Had any of them been friends? There'd been no love lost between Benny and the leader, he'd heard that clearly enough. But the others … vampires did tend toward loyalty – to each other, to their nest, to their maker. Most of them did. He wasn't sure it stretched far enough to be called friendship, at least not in the same way that humans experienced friendship.

He looked up as the vampire's shadow fell over him.

"I'm sorry," Benny said. "That's probably not enough, but there's nothing else I can say. If I could've warned you, I would've."

Dean looked away as Benny settled himself in between two roots of the tree they were under, leaning against the trunk.

"I was a hunter, in the real world," he said. The words came without thought, without prior consideration. He wasn't sure why he'd chosen this moment, this time to come clean with the vamp, but it felt right, in his gut.

He felt Benny's stillness, a quiescence that wasn't calm, that was frozen, waiting.

"I hunted monsters, and killed them, and sent them down here." Dean shot a sideways look at him. "And demons. Killed an angel once too."

The silence between them stretched out. Dean did his best not to fidget. He glanced up at the vampire again.

"Nothing to say to that?"

The vampire drew up his legs, resting his arms on his knees. "Well, I knew you weren't a trapper, _cher_." He turned his head, mouth lifting on one side. "You've had a remarkably good grasp on how to kill everything we've come across."

"Does it bother you?"

"Are you going to hunt me? Down here, or when we get out?" Benny looked at him, his face expressionless.

"That depends," Dean said slowly. "Keep your nose clean, and I won't have to."

The vampire closed his eyes, tipping his head back. "Jus' like that?"

"You've saved my life here, a few times now."

"Well, we're about even on that score, Dean." Benny opened an eye to look at him.

"If we get out, that'll be a debt I can't repay." He looked at the forest on the other side of the clearing. "But if you take innocent people, Benny, and I hear about it, then I won't have a choice, d'you understand that?"

"I hear you, brother," Benny said softly. "I hear you."

"We good?" Dean lifted his head, looking at him.

"I believe so."

* * *

Dean stood in the intersection of the paths, watching Benny as he leaned over the werewolf. They'd found him yesterday, following his tracks and scent all the way to the small lair dug out in the side of a ditch. One of the ones that didn't kill often, or perhaps not at all, Dean thought, looking at the milky, almost translucent, white skin, the network of veins clearly visible under it. The creature was wrapped in the chains they'd found, bound tightly to the massive tree trunk. It had seemed to run out of fight the minute the chains had gone around it.

He watched as Benny turned away, walking slowly back toward him.

"I don't think he knows, man," Benny said, shaking his head.

Dean looked at him briefly and walked past him to the tree. He propped a foot against the roots of the tree and looked into the creature's face. The unconscious twitch of the mouth, the slight flaring of the cleft nostrils. Tells. It knew something.

"Oh, he knows." He leaned closer, his right hand lifting to one side of its face, wrapped in cloth and bound, the deep tooth marks in it still throbbing.

"Where's the angel?"

The werewolf looked down, turning away from the hand that held it. Dean drew his knife, making sure that the werewolf got a good look at it.

"You feel that?" He lifted the blade, laying the edge along the neck, the serrated points pressing into the skin.

"There's a stream," the werewolf said, sucking in a shallow breath as it felt the points dig deeper, the silver burning against its skin.

"Go on," Dean growled.

"Runs through the clearing, not far from here. I'll show you."

Dean shifted the knife, the point pressing into the skin under the jaw. "How 'bout you just tell me?"

He watched the werewolf's face, the recessed eyelids falling as it considered what it thought were its options. _No options here, wolfboy. We don' need no stinkin' batches_.

"Go on!"

"Three days' journey. Follow the stream, there's a clearing. You'll find your angel there," the creature said quickly, looking up at him, black eyes no more than glints deep in the sockets.

Dean stared back at it for a long moment, looking for the tiny, insignificant signs that it was lying. It was telling the truth, as much as it knew, he thought, turning to glance back at Benny. The vampire raised a brow resignedly. It was a possibility.

He turned back to the werewolf. "You know what, mutt?"

The monster looked up again, and Dean smiled into its eyes. "I believe you."

He saw the hope in the creature's eyes as he thrust the blade sharply upward, the gleam of the metal visible through the open mouth and disappearing into the brain. Hope, in a monster. Almost laughable.

Behind him, Benny closed his eyes briefly, head bowing. Dean watched the gleam die out of the eyes then yanked the knife out, wiping it cursorily on his jeans. He turned back to Benny and gestured abruptly with the axe, walking down the trail. He could hear the vampire's footfalls behind him on the hard dirt.

How many had he killed now, he wondered absently, eyes scanning the ground ahead of him, the forest to either side, his gaze moving ceaselessly. Fifty? A hundred? He could see Benny's point about time – it was impossible to keep track of down here, every day so similar to the next that it was only the kills that gave any markers. And they were getting too many to keep track of now.

Up there, where the sun shone, and the stars filled the night sky and life was really life, messy and uncomfortable and filled with pain, he and Sam had been lucky to gank a monster every week or every two. Here he was taking them down by the hundreds. He wondered if he should be keeping score. They were harder to find up in the real world. Hid themselves much more thoroughly, most of them anyway. Here, it was like shooting ducks in a barrel, and if he'd had a single goddamned gun, his score would be in the thousands by now, ammo notwithstanding.

But up there, where the air was sweet and fresh away from the cities, and dirty and poisoned in them, he'd had to hide who he was, what he was. And what he did. What had that gotten him? Pretty much _nada_. Friends all gone. Family all gone. A helluva alcohol tolerance level. Nightmares.

He didn't have those problems here, he realised, a little surprised at the thought. He was in constant danger, and the tension was cranked pretty fucking high, but he wasn't lying to anyone, wasn't pretending to be something he wasn't … wasn't dreaming at all. He felt more like himself than he had in years, all that shit peeled away, Dean unplugged.

* * *

"How'd you meet an angel, anyways?"

Dean looked down at the small lump of oilstone in his hand. All that remained of the latest square bar that lived permanently in his jacket pocket since he'd been eight years old. He drew the blade of the knife over it, listening to the soft burr it made.

"That … that's a long story," he said finally, licking his lips.

"You think we don't have enough time here, Dean?"

He looked up, knowing the smile would be on Benny's face. He didn't want to talk about Hell. Or about God. Not here, not now. He shook his head.

"Some other time, Benny. Not now."

The vampire closed his eyes. Dean looked back at the knife and moved it over the stone again. There was no short version, no easy tell version of that time in his life. The choices he'd made, the things he'd done … most of it was walled up tight, and plastered over, things he wouldn't, couldn't look over again. In the real world, those things still rose up, when he slept, his walls breaking down as memory rose like ground mist and consumed him. Without that constant barrage that had invaded his sleeping hours, he felt clearer. More sane in a weird kind of way, given the current situation and all that encompassed. But it would be back, when they got out. He knew it the same way he knew that he'd last about a week before the need to find some way to drown it out, to make it go away, would hit him and he'd probably be looking for a bar soon after.

Sam had gone on and on at him to get it all out, talk about it, deal with it. He couldn't see the point. Talking about it had never helped. A few times … a few things he'd shared with his brother … they'd been thrown back at him, cutting through him like razor wire when Sam had been possessed or poisoned or just pissed at him. He didn't talk about it, any of it, any more.

Inside, where he lived, where it was just him, there were pieces, broken and scattered around. He knew he couldn't put them back together, they didn't fit together now, and he thought that there were a lot that were missing completely. He didn't think that he would ever get what he wanted – what he'd thought he wanted – even if they made it back to the world. Too much had happened. Too much had changed. He wasn't the man he'd thought he'd be, way back when he still had those dreams. In every future he saw now, there was darkness. And blood. And death. And that was all.

* * *

They could hear the river long before they saw it, a low chuckling echoing softly between the rising valley walls, and Dean picked his way down the slope, through the dying trees, and the new saplings, looking in every direction for the angel, for his friend. Behind him, Benny moved in silence, disapproval radiating out from him. He thought the angel wasn't worth all this effort, and hadn't hidden those thoughts in the last day's travelling.

Dean stopped as the trees thinned a little, and between them he could see a figure crouched on the bank, filthy and watchful. The trenchcoat, even at this distance, even covered in muck, was unmistakable.

"Cas!"

By the water, Castiel ducked his head, then turned, rising and looking around. Dean moved fast down the earth trail, his boots hitting the pebbly bank with a soft crunch.

"Cas."

Dean felt the grin spreading across his face as he met the angel's eyes, speeding up as he got closer, half-disbelieving that it really was him, alive, unhurt. He swung his arms around him, hugging him tightly, feeling the weight and worry of the last few weeks sliding off him. Finally.

"Damn it's good to see you," he said, letting him go and stepping back a little. Cas' expression was still wary, still cool. Dean ignored that, the angel didn't often have a socially appropriate expression for the occasion. "Nice peach fuzz."

"Thank you," Castiel said, his gaze cutting to one side.

"Want you to meet somebody," Dean said, gesturing to the vampire who stood several feet away. "This is Benny, Benny, this is Cas."

The vampire's eyes cut to one side, then he turned back to the angel, nodding slightly. "Hola."

Castiel looked at him, his eyes troubled, then back to Dean. "How did you find me?"

Dean gave him a half-rueful smile. "The bloody way. You feelin' okay?"

"You mean am I still …." Cas waved his finger around in the air beside his head, in the universal gesture indicating mental imbalance.

"Yeah, if you want to be on the nose about it, sure," Dean said, with a puzzled smile.

"No, I'm perfectly sane," Cas said, looking nervously around. "But then ninety-four percent of psychotics think they're perfectly sane so I guess we have to ask ourselves, what is sane?"

Something had happened to him, Dean thought, pushing his sudden feeling of foreboding away. They could deal with everything once they were the fuck out. He nodded. "Yeah, good question."

From the forest edge, Benny cut in abruptly. "Why'd you bail on Dean?"

"Dude." Dean gestured to the vampire, looking back at Cas. The angel's gaze was still moving, around the forest, across the river.

"The way I hear it, you two hit monster-land and Hot Wings here took off. I figure he owes you some back story." Benny looked at Dean, his eyes narrowed.

"Look, we were surrounded, okay? Some freak jumped Cas, obviously he kicked its ass, right?" Dean looked at the angel for confirmation, expecting to hear the whole story, the story that would make it all right, that would make being left alone, surrounded by monsters, understandable.

"No," Castiel said, very softly, lifting his eyes to Dean's.

"What?" It wasn't what he wanted to hear, and he felt his stomach drop sharply, looking into the angel's face, seeing the transparent regret there.

Benny's face twisted slightly, eyes closing as he heard the disbelief in the man's voice.

"I ran away."

Dean looked at him blankly. "You ran away?"

"I had to."

"That's your excuse for leaving me with those gorilla wolves?" Dean asked slowly, something inside breaking, just a little.

"Dean –"

"You bailed out and what – went camping?" It was the same thing that had broken before, that had barely healed, barely closed, just a crack, but opening slowly and filling him with anger. "I prayed to you, Cas. Every night!"

Castiel looked away. "I know."

"You know, and you didn't –" Dean straightened up, cutting himself off, clamping down on the emotions, on the disbelief that the angel had done this to him again. It was the same, not quite the same but still … the same. The same sense of betrayal, of anger, of pain. After everything. After needing it to be fixed so much, needing to be able trust someone. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"I am an angel in a land of abominations. There have been things hunting me from the moment we arrived." Castiel's voice hardened slightly and the edge cut at Dean.

"Join the club!" Dean snapped at him. Didn't the dumbass angel realise how much stronger they'd have been together? Watching each other's backs? Looking out for each other? _No_, he thought furiously, _the dumbass angel had just fucking taken off_.

"These are not just monsters, Dean, they're Leviathan. I have a price on my head and I've trying to stay one step ahead of them to –" He looked away and then back, his shoulders slumping. "To keep them away from you."

Dean stared at him as the words penetrated slowly. _Leviathan. Yeah, the angel would have been like a beacon to them, to all the monsters in here, God's emissary wandering around their territory, without power, without backup_. His anger fell away, his imagination supplying the details that Cas had omitted. At least he'd known what he was doing, most of time, he thought. The monsters weren't specifically targeted on him. He watched Castiel turn away. "That's why I ran."

For a moment, the silence between them felt like a living thing. Dean stood there, unsure of what to say, what to do. A minute ago he'd been filled with hope, with … happiness, almost, with relief and the sense that they could finally get going, get out, go home.

Castiel looked at the river, his gaze flicking uncomfortably back and forth from the water to the man. "Just … leave me, please."

"Sounds like a plan," Benny said, his face sour as he stared at the angel. "Let's roll."

"Hold on," Dean said quietly to the vampire, keeping his gaze on Castiel. "Hold on."

"Cas –" There was no way he could just leave. No way he was giving up that easy, not after everything he'd done, been through. No matter what it took he had to get that through to the angel, had to make him understand. "We're getting out of here. We're going home."

Castiel looked at the ground. "Dean, I can't."

"You can!" He didn't take his eyes off the angel, refused to acknowledge the hopelessness in Cas' voice, his own deepening as his throat tightened slightly. "Benny, tell him."

The vampire exhaled softly. "Purgatory has an escape hatch. But I got no idea if it's angel-friendly."

"Hey, we'll figure it out," Dean said, overriding that. The angel didn't need any other excuses not to come with them.

"Cas –" Dean spread out his arms supplicatingly, looking at the angel. He wasn't going to leave him here, not like this, not at all. Cas was the only one who knew. The only one who knew it all. "Buddy, I need you."

Castiel's expression changed as he saw the vulnerability in the man's face, heard the painful honesty in his words. He knew too what that admission had cost his friend. "Dean …"

"And if Leviathan want to take a shot at us, let 'em." Dean summoned up the bravado that had once been always there, the reckless confidence that he could make it through anything, could deal with anything, if he had someone he could trust at his back. "We ganked those bitches once before, we can do it again."

Castiel shook his head. "It's too dangerous."

Dean could see the fear on the angel's face; fear not only of what they were facing, what they were considering maybe, but also fear of the responsibility of friendship. Of the risks that involved. He knew Cas' guilt, knew the emotions were eating away at the angel. There was nothing he could do it about it, not here, not now. _Figure that out later_, he thought, looking away. If the angel was looking for penance here, he could forget it. He could serve his time upstairs – _or wherever the real world was_ – making things right. He drew in a deep breath, looking over the river.

"Let me bottom-line it for you, I'm not leaving here without you," he said, and he looked back at the angel. "Understand?"

"I understand," Castiel said quietly, meeting his eyes steadily for the first time.

Dean nodded, ducking his head as relief seeped into him. He'd missed his friend. The last two years … they'd taken a bite from something he hadn't known he'd felt, exactly. Not until it was too late.

He turned to look at Benny, mouth curving on one side. "Now, we can go."

* * *

Benny walked point as they climbed up out of the stream's valley, winding back through the woods. Castiel followed him and Dean walked rear, only a couple of feet behind the angel.

Like the start of a bad joke, Dean thought derisively, looking up the trail, a vampire, an angel and a man walked through a forest … no joke, though. They were doing it; they were getting out of here, together, in one piece. He couldn't help the spring in his step at the thought.

A burger, loaded with bacon and cheese and onions and that dark, rich sauce he'd had in St Louis. Beer, three or four bottles to start with, ice cold and crisp over his tongue and bubbling down his throat. And Sam. He couldn't wait to see the look on his brother's face, watch his expressions when he told him about this place. Fuck, he wanted to be home.

He looked at Benny; the vamp's back stiff with tension, his weapon swinging by his side. That would be harder to explain, he realised slowly. He could live with Sam giving him a hard time over befriending a monster, which he would undoubtedly do given the number of times he'd criticised Sam for doing the same thing. Here, Benny was a hunter, the same as him. The vamp had his back, had saved his life, had killed his own for him. But … in the real world, Benny wouldn't be hunting with him. He'd need to feed. He pushed the thoughts away impatiently, ignoring the trickle of unease that had come with them and was lying in his gut like ice water. He'd figure it out. Somehow.

"Cas," he said softly, lengthening his stride until he was beside the angel Castiel looked at him questioningly.

"We'll figure it all out, once we get out. You know that, right?"

Cas looked away, his gaze flickering over the woods around them. "It might not be that easy, Dean."

"No." He couldn't argue with that. Nothing was easy. Nothing had ever been easy. "But we're not giving up, man." He slowed a little and Castiel slowed as well, turning back to him. "We're not giving in."

The angel nodded. He didn't look particularly convinced, Dean thought. Of course, the mess was huge. He didn't even know where to start. And there were some things that couldn't be forgiven, couldn't be forgotten, no matter how much you wanted to, how much you needed to. Cas wasn't exactly an angel anymore. And he wasn't human either. He'd followed his feelings, been tempted and had failed. Had disobeyed and brought down a good chunk of Heaven in his pride and arrogance. Dean wondered if he would be able to get past those things. Ever.

Going into the confrontation with Roman, the angel had been willing to die. So had he. Death, after the saving world from Roman, would have been a fitting end, as he'd seen it. Surviving, and surviving Purgatory was a curve ball he hadn't seen, couldn't have guessed at. Not that they were entirely out of it yet, but they had a better shot at it than they'd had on a lot of other things they'd done, had survived.

He dropped back, letting the angel walk ahead of him. Whatever happened, when they got out and had to face reality again, it would happen. Maybe none of them would be able to go back; maybe they wouldn't be able to find a way forward either. He didn't know. Couldn't even imagine.

The trees thinned, letting the soft grey light through and Dean caught up to Cas, passing him and walking to stand beside Benny. The vampire looked down the open slope, at the rock-strewn valley below, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful.

"We can follow that," he said softly, pointing up the twisting valley. "It'll take us close to the glass pit."

"Glass pit?" Dean glanced at him.

"We need … special glass. A special kind of rock," Benny said, keeping his eyes on the view. "To get through the portal."

"Okay."

Benny gestured at the slope. "We'll get down here."

They picked their way down, single file, the grass tufts and smooth rock slippery underfoot. In the bottom of the valley, the glare was strong, the grey light reflecting from the pale rocks and making hard to see the details, beneath the shadows. Benny stopped when they reached the centre, looking up and down the long, twisting length. Dean looked at the hillsides, steep, in some places almost sheer, the vegetation pale and browned off, mostly grass, clinging ferociously to the thin soil in between the outthrust rock edges. Not an easy climb out.

"This way," the vampire said, and the acoustics of the valley seemed to eat up his voice.

Dean followed Cas, the nerves on the back of his neck prickling. They were exposed down here, visible to everything around them. He couldn't see or even sense any movement, anyone else down there with them or watching from the slopes, but the prickling remained, and he could feel the cold tension in his shoulders and chest, forcing himself to take deeper breaths to loosen the muscles.

They'd covered nearly five hundred yards along the rough valley floor when Benny's head lifted sharply and he stopped, turning around rapidly. Ahead of him, Cas stopped as well, the angel's eyes scanning the slopes. Dean couldn't hear anything, turning slowly to look at the forest, edging the valley walls above them. Then he did.

They turned together at the sound of rock hitting rock, eyes focussing on the figures that were coming out of the trees on the ridge line, scrambling fast down the steep slopes. Dean frowned at them, the clothing, the weapons they carried, held aloft in their hands, the overall impression was that they were …

Benny swung around, his weapon arching over his head as he pointed to the valley wall to their right. "Move it! NOW!"

He started to run and Castiel and Dean followed, both accelerating as the vampire hit the slope, hands and feet scrabbling over the grass and rocks for handholds, footholds. Castiel started to climb as well, and Dean jumped, catching a solid outcropping of rock and hauling himself higher. He glanced back, the first of the men had reached the valley floor, were racing toward them, mouths open but their voices muffled and indistinct. _Humans_, he thought, looking back up for the next thing to grab, the next place to put his feet. Judging by Benny's reaction, the humans who'd become monsters. Well, the party never stopped, down here in monster land.

He saw the vampire disappear over the edge above him and looked down, Cas just below and to one side, the angel seeming to take the threat seriously, sweat making clean tracks through the grime on his face. Dean felt a hand close around his wrist and Benny yanked him upward, already turning for the edge of the forest that was a few yards away. Dean rolled onto his feet, bracing himself against the edge of the drop and holding his hand out to Cas. When the angel reached up, he closed his fingers around Cas' wrist and pulled.

The flat crack of a shot echoed across the valley and Dean's head snapped up in surprise. He looked down again as his fingers slipped on Cas' arm, tightening his grip and leaning back. Below him, Cas looked up, eyes wide.

He felt the vampire's hand close hard around his arm, and tried to pull away as splinters of stone exploded next to him. The shot sounded a second later, and he swore under his breath, pulling against Benny's grip as he felt his fingers slipping again from Cas' wrist.

Benny threw his weight back, and yanked Dean from the edge. He lost his hold on Cas and heard the angel's despairing cry, struggling to roll over and get free of the vampire.

"Goddammit, Benny, no," he yelled, wrenching his arm free as the vampire shifted his grip to his jacket. "I'm not leaving him behind!"

Benny dragged him forward, staring into his face, blue eyes narrowed and blazing. "They won't kill him, they need him, but they will kill me and they'll kill you!"

Dean looked back to the edge, torn apart. The vamp hadn't lied to him, not yet.

"They'll take him to their territory, Dean," Benny's voice was hard, close by his ear. "We can get him back, but not if we're dead."

He could hear the sounds of the humans' ascent now, rocks falling onto each other, the gabble of voices just below the edge. Jaw clenched tight, he turned away, nodding once to the vampire and running for the trees.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

The forest that ran along the ridge was like any other pine forest he'd ever seen. Dark, gloomy, almost silent. Even their thudding footfalls were muffled by the thick layer of needles that covered the ground, feet occasionally sliding out on the soft, slippery surface if they didn't watch their step.

Dean ran steadily, fighting against the tightness in his chest, against the impulse to turn around and go after Cas, against the shame was that creeping into his thoughts, keeping his eyes on the ground at the vampire's heels.

_Anna_. _Jo and Ellen_. _Adam_. _Now, Cas_. Once, he'd been able to say that he'd never left anyone behind, had always fought at the risk of his life to bring everyone out. He looked back at the faces that rose up from his past and felt a shudder run through him. He couldn't say it now. Hadn't been able to say that for years. And every time, it cut another piece away. Added another layer of guilt, of loathing, of bitterness over him, forced him again into the realisation that he wasn't the man his father had wanted to him to be, the man he'd wanted to be.

Maybe it was naïve, to believe that kind of stuff, he thought, especially after everything he'd seen. Maybe it was the last shreds of the innocence of childhood, that white hat mentality where you were nothing if you weren't one of the good guys. Maybe he should know that the world didn't work that way. That it had possibly never worked that way, all those stories, all those old movies that he'd watched as a kid were just myth, an enduring myth that no one could live up to. To his knowledge, his father had never left anyone behind.

The vampire turned and slowed, cutting across the slope off the trail, moving from exposed rock to rock. Dean followed him. They were just within the tree line, and slightly lower than the skyline of the ridge. Benny stopped in the shadow of a slab of rock that hung out from the hillside, hunkered down on his haunches, his expression cool and hard as he looked down into the valley below.

Dean dropped to one knee beside him, following the vampire's gaze. He could see them, the group of humans. In their midst, the pale camel trenchcoat stood out, even against the muted colours of the rocky valley floor. The angel was walking. He was still alive. Dean glanced at Benny, and the vampire turned slightly, acknowledging his look with a lifted brow.

"How far to where they're living?"

"'Bout three or four miles, as the crow flies," Benny replied softly, pointing to the slightly higher peaks beyond the valley. "Not far."

"Why do they need an angel?" Dean asked.

Benny shook his head. "I don't know the details. There was something about another portal, not back to our world, but to another one."

Dean watched the group cross the valley floor and head up the slope where the twist of the land had gentled the incline. That flat crack, that had been a rifle, he thought. A powerful one, maybe 30.30 or bigger calibre. And whoever had been shooting hadn't missed them by accident. It was going to make getting Cas back a lot harder. He shut away the image of the angel's face, eyes widened in panic, his mouth open and his fingers scrabbling in desperation. _I'm not going to leave you here, Cas_, he told the angel – and himself – silently. _I'm coming after you_.

Benny's head turned away, looking up the ascending ridge to the left. "We go this way for two days. Then we'll get the rock and cut over."

"Two days?" Dean frowned at him. "How do we know Cas has got that time?"

"We don't," Benny said, glancing back. "But there's no way we can get the angel out of there, without having everything ready for opening that doorway. They'll hunt us down and we'll be trapped here."

"I'm not leaving without him," Dean warned the vampire very softly.

"Yeah, I got that, Dean," Benny acknowledged, shifting his feet to face him. "We'll go get him."

He turned and got up, walking out from the rock doubled-over and taking a higher trail back over the ridge, through the trees. Dean followed him, glancing back once more as the group on the other side valley made the trees and disappeared into them. He had no choice but to trust that Benny was doing the right thing.

* * *

"Someone's following us," Benny murmured quietly. Dean nodded. He'd heard the sounds a while back, when they'd crossed a steeper valley and they'd been slightly amplified by the bare enclosed space.

"Can't be many of them," he said, remembering the size of the group.

"No. Two, I think," Benny agreed, leaning back against a tree trunk. "But armed with guns."

Dean opened his mouth to ask how the vamp knew that, then closed it again. The light breeze was blowing up the long ridge toward them, he could feel it feathering the hair against his forehead, cooling the sweat there. Benny could probably smell them, smell the oil and the metal and the powder that would stand out like a fucking neon sign in this world of muted, natural scents. He thought of the flat sound of the shot, of the explosion of the rock beside him. He could use a rifle. The marksman had been good, though. And the range had been considerable. He reluctantly shelved the idea of an ambush.

"Outrun them?"

Benny nodded, drawing in a deep breath. "Yeah, we have other things to do."

They moved off the trail, through the woods, keeping to a steady loping pace, unworried about the noise they made, although it was very little, but careful about the tracks they left. Walking for a half-mile upstream in the narrow, bubbling creek and coming out over an expanse of bare rock. Keeping off the soft ground and away from the thick understorey of vegetation, they split up occasionally, taking either side of the small valleys then rejoining where they would leave no sign of it.

Dean stopped from time to time, just listening. He couldn't hear any sound of pursuit now. Didn't mean that they weren't still there. When he was twenty-four, he'd spent a month with an old man, a tracker his father knew somehow, in the badlands of Utah. He'd learned that for tracking, patience was the key. Infinite patience. That old man could track anything across any kind of ground, and Dean had followed him through the high desert, silently for the most part, learning by watching, watching the man's patience as he'd looked at every inch of ground, had waited tirelessly in the heat of the sun for his prey to lose its nerve and rabbit out of its hiding place, had listened to the world and heard clues in the wind, in the rain, in the gentle breathing of the earth.

He didn't have that degree of patience in himself, certainly not at twenty-four. But he'd understood, in the marrow of his bones, how it had been done. Not magic, just patience. He wondered if the men following them had that kind of patience.

When the breeze had shifted, Benny stopped, grabbing handfuls of fresh pine needles and crushing them in his hands, rubbing the sharp scent over his face and arms and clothes. Dean wrinkled his nose at the smell, too reminiscent of the chemical facsimiles found in car deodorisers. On the other hand, he thought, the very sharpness of those stupid things did hide the existing smells effectively – if only by forcing you to open the windows.

When the light disappeared, they stopped, crawling into a narrow ditch under the partial covering of a huge, rotten log and covering themselves with leaves and branches. Dean lay under the soft, thick covering, his eyes closed, his thoughts churning.

_You know, I used to be able to just shake this stuff off. You know, whatever it was. It might take me some time, but ... I always could. What Cas did ... I just can't – I don't know why. _

_Shake it off_, he thought, lips curling up without the slightest bit of humour. _There's a good euphemism for you_. He'd never shaken any of it. Just buried it. As deep as he could, learning to think over it and past it and around it and not look at it at all, all those things that had left their scars inside of him. Learned to pretend. He'd learned to function, that was all.

The bit about what Cas had done, that had been the truth. He hadn't known why it had been so impossible to push it aside. The angel had been filled with remorse when he'd returned the souls to Purgatory. But it hadn't felt real, and it hadn't done anything for either of them. It wasn't just what Cas had done to Sam's wall, although the callous expediency of that single act had shocked him to his core. It had been his betrayal of their friendship, first. The lying. The bitter gall of Cas conspiring with Crowley to open a gate that both should have known would be a risk greater than Heaven or Hell running amok over the planet. And then Sam's wall.

Between his brother's imminent collapse into insanity, and Cas' god complex, he'd been unable to find the time to get any perspective on what had happened. He'd been pulverised, crushed by the conflicting, savage emotions and he realised now that those wounds had sucked both his hope and his strength out of him. Even seeing Cas again hadn't helped as much as he'd thought it had. He understood what the angel had done, and why. Understood that Cas had been running blind, not knowing what he was doing, not thinking of the reaching consequences of his actions. He'd told the angel that he'd just been doing the best that he could. In one way, from one point of view, it'd been the truth. Castiel had known differently. It might've been a human reaction but he wasn't human.

The guilt had broken him. Taking Sam's madness into himself had begun the process of healing. Sam had told him that the angel had seen it, somehow, as a penance, a means of righting at least a part of what he'd done so thoughtlessly. He didn't know where the angel was with all of that now. And there was nothing he could do about any of Cas' problems anyway. But he needed to do something about his own.

He just didn't know how.

* * *

Light filtered through the vegetation over him and turned the black of the inside of his eyelids to grey. He listened and heard the deep silence of the forest, lifting his hand slowly and pushing aside the covering of litter from his face.

As he levered himself out of the narrow ditch, standing and brushing the dirt from his clothes, he suddenly remembered his outburst in Jersey, bitching about the life they'd been forced into, off the grid and living in empty houses, cold showers and cold food. The memory brought a smile. He'd really thought at the time that it couldn't get worse. Good to know it could _always_ get worse.

He looked up, catching Benny's quizzical expression and shook his head, the smile twisting into a rueful grimace. The vampire shrugged slightly and gestured up the slope. Dean nodded.

They kept to the faster pace, staying off the ridge line, although it would have been quicker and easier on them, keeping to the multitudinous folds of the small, narrow valleys that ran down from it.

As he ran, Dean found himself noticing things almost automatically. A bent branch, the inner wood bright against the darker bark. A pile of leaves scattered over a bare patch of soil. A single hair, deep red and long, caught in a cluster of pine needles, catching the light as he passed it. He didn't need to think about those things, they told him plainly that a werewolf had passed through here recently, had stopped, had moved on. Not hunting, just travelling.

Everywhere he looked, every piece of ground his eyes brushed over told him some kind of story. A storm. A fight. A death. The clues lay around in abundance and it came to him very gradually that he was registering them all, processing and analysing and filing them away without the need to think about it.

He had no idea of how long he'd been here. He thought it had been months, but he couldn't be sure about that. None of the usual markers of time passing operated here, not the seasons or any change in the environment at all. His hair had grown a little, he thought, lifting his hand and running his fingers through it. He'd used the knife to shorten the stubble that covered his cheeks and jaw a few weeks ago, but it hadn't been long, exactly, just itchy. And he couldn't remember exactly how long ago he'd done that, only knew it had been before he'd met Benny.

How long had they looked for Cas, the two of them together? Weeks, certainly. Months? He didn't know. Criss-crossing the land, they'd followed dozens of leads, beaten and carved out of the monsters they'd come across, each new lead leading to nothing until that last werewolf.

He looked at Benny, jogging tirelessly ahead of him. He knew a lot about the vampire now. Some things, he'd just absorbed, from the time spent together. Other things, they'd talked about, conversations occasionally spanning days while they moved from one place to another. And the deepest things, the most important things, he'd learned from what the vampire had done. Like saving him.

* * *

They kept walking after nightfall. Benny could see clearly enough in the dark and the trail was wide and flat. Dean listened, no longer trying to see, but relying on his ears to mark the position of the vampire in front of him, hearing the steady steps on the soft ground. He missed his flashlight. He couldn't have used it, it would've drawn the attention of everything in range, but he missed it nevertheless. He stretched his back and neck, feeling the knots in the muscles there. He missed a lot of things, he thought. At the same time, there were a surprising number of things he did not miss.

He stopped, hearing a creak from the woods to the left, heard Benny stop as well, both of them completely still, waiting. Something stepping on green wood, he thought as he replayed the soft sound in his mind. The vampire thought so too, so still that he couldn't hear anything at all from the figure he knew was right in front of him. The forest remained silent. Dean heard the soft slur as Benny turned in front of him, pivoting on one foot, knew he would be searching the darkness in the trees for any kind of movement. Then the vampire took a step forward, and another, walking away from him up the trail. He followed slowly, careful to put his feet down heel to toe, making no sound.

He'd always been a good hunter. Aware of his surroundings. Aware of the factors in a situation that could affect the outcome of any confrontation. Aware of his own limitations and the limitations of whatever it was he hunted. He didn't know if that had been all his father's training, training that had started when he'd been very young, or if it was something he'd been born with. Hunting here … that had changed a lot of things. He'd never felt as tuned into his environment. Never felt the shades of grey fall away so completely, making it so straightforward that he barely had to think of consequences, of fall-out, of the balance between right and wrong.

… _the way he raised us, to hate those things; and man, I hate 'em. I do. When I killed that vampire at the mill I didn't even think about it; hell, I even enjoyed it._

The memory rose quietly, stealing into his thoughts. Sam had stopped him that time, and he'd seen for himself Gordon's bright insanity … spilling past the boundaries of hunter, into the darkness of becoming a monster. This wasn't quite the same thing, he thought, uncomfortable with the way his thoughts were going. He killed to survive. To save himself. To save others. It wasn't the same as tying something to a chair and carving them up into little pieces.

_But you've done that too, haven't you?_ His steps faltered and he heard Benny slow down, ahead of him. He shook his head at the unseen and unspoken question and ducked his head, walking faster. _So who's to say when everything's accounted for and it's all totalled up which side you're really going to end up on?_

"Dean! Help!"

_Sam. That was Sam_. The thought completely disoriented him and he spun around, knife already in his hand, staring hopelessly into the blackness. _Just a few feet into the trees_, he thought, taking a step closer to the edge of the trail.

"No!" Benny's hand gripped his arm, holding him back, his voice thick with some emotion. "It's not whoever you think it is."

There was a rustling, deep within the trees.

"Dean, it's me, help me!"

The power of that voice pierced him like a sword, his muscles jumping and twitching as he kept still against every instinct to dive forward into the darkness, to find his brother and help him. He could hear the rasp and hitch of the vampire's breath beside him and he wondered fleetingly who it was Benny was hearing. _Crocotta_. The knowledge came together with his curiosity about the vampire's reaction, and he tapped his finger on Benny's hand, nodding to him, feeling the grip loosen on his arm.

It wasn't far into the trees, and he leaned close to the vampire's ear.

"Take it from either side?"

"No. You can't see. Stay here," Benny said tersely, an edge to his voice Dean hadn't heard before.

The vampire ghosted away, moving into the trees without a sound.

"Dean … help me."

He turned slowly around. The second voice was on the other side of the trail, almost a whisper. And not Sam.

_A second crocotta? Or the real thing?_

"Dean …," the angel's voice was broken, a rough breath thickened by agonising pain.

"Cas?" He took a step across the trail. "Cas?"

A twig snapped in front of him, the sound muffled slightly by the trees in between. Eight or nine yards, he thought. A soft hiss, a sibilant slurry of needles brushing against each other sounded closer, lower to the ground.

"Dean … I can't … walk …"

He took another step forward and hesitated. There was no way the angel could be here. They'd seen him walking in the other direction the day before yesterday, and if he'd been able to teleport himself over the distance, then why not straight onto the trail. He looked down, feeling the fine tremble in his hands transferred to the knife blade, and he closed his fingers tightly around the haft. _Not Cas_, he told himself. Another crocotta, looking to lead him into the forest.

"Cas, I can't see, man," he called softly. He waited in the silence. Another shirring rustle of needles, closer now, maybe five or six yards away.

"Dean …," the voice of the angel trailed off to a whisper.

The mimicry was good. Perfect, in fact. It acted on his nervous system and imagination in a way that would have been almost impossible to resist, if he hadn't known better, hadn't known of such a creature. The first time he'd heard one, it had been his father's voice. And even knowing that the man was dead hadn't stopped the surge of hope, of relief, in him when he'd heard it.

He closed his eyes, waiting. Another soft rustle. And another. He couldn't remember now how well the creatures saw in the dark, but he thought it was probably a helluva lot better than he could. He needed to know where it was, know that precisely if he was going to have a chance to take it down before it attacked.

He heard the panting breath and stepped forward, feeling a tree root against the toe of his boot, the edge of the trail reached. In his mind, the sounds of the crocotta were translated to a three-dimensional picture of it, in front of him, very slightly to the left, he could hear the faint rasp of fabric on fabric as it moved slightly, the squeak of needles over bark as it shifted its weight from one foot to the other, the deeply indrawn breath as it opened its mouth, all the sounds altered the picture in his mind, and his left hand flashed out, fingers closing without doubt in the folds of clothing at the thing's chest, dragging it hard toward him, his weight focussed on that arm, as his right hand lifted and he stepped close, the crocotta's shoulder tight against his chest, its rising scream of rage pinpointing the neck, the back of which was his target.

From the other side of the trail, a second scream split the night, and Dean felt the monster in his hand shift slightly as the blade punched down and into the flesh. Not quite right, he thought, hanging on tightly as it whipped around toward him, trying to break his grip. The exhale over his face was thick with the stench of rot, and his automatic gagging reaction loosened his fingers slightly. He felt the creature break free, and he dropped, his leg scything out in front of him, hoping there wasn't a tree there as well. He felt the legs of the crocotta fly out and he braced himself for its weight as it fell onto him. For a second he wasn't sure what he had hold of, arm or leg or neck, as they thrashed on the ground, man and monster struggling to get the advantage, then he felt the brush of its hair, and heaved himself over, elbow driving into its back, hearing the rushing exhale as air was forced out of the chest, his knee over the kidneys – or what would be the kidneys if it was a man – and his greater weight pinning the thing to the ground. His fingers found the bony lump where the neck joined the spine, and rested the knife's tip there, then he moved up and let himself drop onto the hilt, the blade hesitating for a second on the bone then breaking through, the creature arching up, limbs jerking and twisting helplessly as it died.

_Fun stuff_, he thought as he rolled off it, lying on his back next to the body, chest heaving. _Monster hunting blind_. He rolled onto his side, getting his knee under him and getting up slowly, listening for Benny, for anything to indicate the direction he should be taking to get back on the trail.

"Couldn't just leave it to me, could you, _cher_?" Benny's voice came from behind him, to the right, a few feet away, and Dean turned around, grinning in the direction of the vampire.

"I managed," he said, hearing the faint thread of satisfaction in his own voice. The vampire laughed.

"Sure did," Benny agreed, the laughter gone from his voice as he looked around. "Let's get outta here before the scavengers turn up."

Dean felt the vampire's hand close over his shoulder, tighten slightly and drop away. He wiped the knife's blade on his jeans and slid it back into the sheath, following Benny slowly.

* * *

Kneeling by the small creek, Dean ducked his head into the cold water, balanced on one hand as the other washed the blood from his face and hair. He straightened up, and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. Light had come an hour ago, and they'd found a good place to rest for a while. He looked down into the pool next to him, watching the last of the ripples dissipate, his reflection clearly visible on the water's surface. The face that looked back up at him was different to how he remembered it. Thinner, lines etched in deeper around the eyes and mouth, paler, harder.

He turned away from it, getting to his feet. _Everything changes. Way of the world, right?_ He couldn't remember who he'd been, when he'd gone to Palo Alto to get his brother. It was still him, still there but in some sense it was like someone else. Someone who saw everything clearly. Someone who'd had no idea of what could really happen in the life. What could really be lost.

He settled himself on the ground, under the overhang of the tree's roots, tucking his arm behind his head. He'd been harder back then, he thought bemusedly. Harder but not hardened, trying to be his dad, trying to be a bad-ass. He'd had no idea, really, of what that was.

He opened an eye as Benny ducked under the roots, sitting and leaning against the packed dirt. The vampire looked … unsettled, he thought, the easy smile hadn't been in evidence for a while.

"Anything out there?"

Benny shook his head and closed his eyes. "No, nothing."

"You alright, Benny?" Dean asked, tilting his head back.

"I'm fine," the vampire answered softly. "I'm all right."

_Bull_, Dean thought. He didn't know him that well, but he knew him well enough to know that wasn't true.

As if he'd sensed the thought, Benny turned his head to look at Dean. "I don't like those things, that's all. They give me the chills."

That was closer to the truth, Dean thought, but still not all of it. "Yeah, the way they pick up on what's in your head … freaked me out the first time I heard one too."

The vampire was silent.

"It was my Dad's voice, that one. A year after he'd died," Dean said quietly. "I thought it was a ghost, at first."

He could feel the vampire's attention sharpen on him.

"Then I started to wonder. He'd made a deal, my Dad, with a demon," he hesitated, memory overwhelming for a second, with all the enmeshed emotions that had filled it. "To save my life, to keep me from dying."

"That must have been a heavy load to carry," Benny said softly.

Dean closed his eyes. "Yeah."

He was surprised by the insight of the vampire. It had been an unbearable load. In some ways, it still was.

"When I heard his voice, on the phone, I thought … I hoped, I guess, that he'd found a way out."

"You still miss him?"

Dean drew in a deep breath. It was complicated, the answer to that question. Everything he'd been, everything he'd thought to be or ever wanted to be was wrapped up in his love for his father. But in the last few years that had become more and more tainted. There was a part of him that hated John Winchester for sacrificing himself to save him. A part of him that blamed his father for the burdens that had bowed him down and ground him into the dirt over the last few years. And there was a part that knew that the anger he was feeling wasn't anger at all, just crusted-over grief that had never been dealt with. Another skeleton buried in his mind that he'd never laid to rest.

"I guess." He rubbed his hand over his face tiredly. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"I don't know," Dean said. "Who did you lose, Benny? Whose voice did you hear?"

The vampire didn't respond, but the silence was weighted suddenly, between them, filled with a tension that hadn't been there the second before. He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Benny.

"I'm sorry –"

Benny shook his head slightly, staring at the twisting root on the opposite side of the hollow. "It's all right. When I come across those … things … I hear the voice of my son. That's all."

_Son._

"He died, in 1930," Benny said. Under that short statement, Dean heard a depth of pain. "He was six years old then. Just six."

"I'm sorry."

The vampire blinked, looking at him from hooded eyes. "It was a long time ago, _cher_."

He shifted against the roots, slouching back. "A long time and a different world."

Dean listened to the vamp settling himself, knowing that Benny wouldn't say anything more about that now. Anymore than he'd been prepared to say anything more about his father. There was something in the symmetry of the two conversations, but he couldn't quite get it.

He hadn't thought of the vampire as anything other than what he was now. Once, he'd been a man, though. An ordinary man – a father. He wondered what had happened to that man, who'd lost his son and become a vampire, and hunted and killed until he'd been killed himself.

Same thing that happens to everyone. Life. Death. Pain. Loss. It drove them into doing things they couldn't have conceived of, into lives that were inescapable, and once the debts started to accumulate that was the beginning of the end because there was no way they could paid.

What he was doing, here, right now, was changing him. He could feel it. It was clear to him here what had to be done, and how to do it. A painful clarity that felt like … felt like he was becoming something else. Getting rid of all the crap that had held him back, had kept him stumbling and dazed and confused through the last two years, kept him soft. _Are all hunters as soft as you in the future?_ Ness' words, edged with contempt and a carelessness that had made him blink.

You couldn't want too many things in life. Meg'd had it right. One cause. Just one. To serve and be enough of a reason to get up in the morning.

_I'm never going to leave another family to be hit like we were, Dean. There are things out there, in the night, in the dark places, in suburbs and small towns and big cities of this country that are preying on the innocent, feeding on them. What we do, it's important, son. We save lives. We kill the evil sonofabitches who have no business living here._

Dean remembered his father telling him that. He'd been eleven, he thought, maybe a bit younger. The look in his father's eyes had been … electrifying, almost fanatical. He felt that charge pass from his father to him, energising him for a brief moment then sinking down into him, maybe into his bones or his heart, but remaining there, a welded-on part of him ever since.

_I know what I am. I'm a killer._

It was true. It was what he was. It was who he was. It was time he let the rest go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

"We'll get there tomorrow, I think," Benny said.

Dean looked at the rim of the crater, rising higher on one side than the other, the jagged edges like teeth against the diffused pearly light of the not-really-sky. He couldn't remember what the name of the volcanic glass was, only that it was black or smoky looking, a remnant from some documentary he'd seen years ago leaving an image in his mind of a long, wickedly sharp sliver of black stone.

Benny was still being cagey about the spell and the ingredients they needed to open the portal. He smiled when asked, and shook his head, and gave him assurances that everything that was needed was in Purgatory. No details though.

"Anything living in there?" he asked, watching the vamp's profile. He saw the slight wince in the down-drawn movement of his mouth.

"Yeah, I don't know what they are, didn't get close enough to get a good look, 'cos they moved fast."

"What'd they look like?" Dean's eyes narrowed slightly as the vampire turned to him, face impassive.

"Asian looking – black hair, slanted black eyes," Benny's teeth caught at his lip as he dragged the memories back. "Two women, I think. And a male. I saw 'em catch a small pack of dogs, what'd you call 'em?"

"Skinwalkers."

"Yeah, skinwalkers, on the edge of the crater." He shook his head. "When it was over, there was nothin' left but tufts of fur, and these things sitting there picking their teeth with the bone slivers."

_Asian. Fast. Ferocious. Still left a few candidates_, Dean thought. Some of which he could kill with what they had … one of which they couldn't.

"Did you see the teeth?"

Benny nodded. He lifted his upper lip. "Like these, but more of them, longer. An' I don't think they retracted."

_Okami. Most likely_, Dean thought. It would have to be the one he didn't have a weapon for, wouldn't it? And three of them, holed up there together.

"Well, we're in trouble then," he said to the vampire. "I don't have anything that can kill them."

Benny looked at him. "Have to see what we can come up with when we get there."

Dean nodded, turning away from the cliff's edge and starting to walk back down to the trail. _Yeah, see what we can come up with. What the hell would substitute for a bamboo knife blessed by a Shinto priest … here?_

* * *

It wasn't until just before dark, when they'd found a clump of birch saplings, dense enough to hide them, and to make an attack obvious, that he remembered the conversation with Rufus.

"_How is it that you've always just run out of the good stuff whenever I call?" He'd walked into the narrow hallway, handing Rufus the bottle of Blue Label as he passed._

_Rufus grinned, following him back to the kitchen. "Got me. Some alignment of the cosmos in the favour of the righteous, maybe?"_

"_Some fucking grift, you mean?" He'd glanced back over his shoulder at the older man. "Wiping me out buying that stuff for you."_

"_Stop whining, kid. I always share."_

_They sat at the small table, in the grimy kitchen that looked exactly the same as the last time he'd been there, books and files and junk stacked over every horizontal surface._

"_You could always pick up the place, if you're expecting company," he'd said dryly, looking around._

_Rufus snorted as he opened the bottle and poured a generous amount into each of the glasses on the table. "You ain't company, kid. You're just a hunter."_

"_Bobby tell you about Scotland?" He picked up the glass and looked at Rufus._

"_Yeah. Good work."_

"_He was kind of … crotchety, for a while there."_

_Rufus looked at him, brows raised. "An' you're – what? – surprised?"_

_He'd looked away. They'd forgotten about Bobby's deal, until he'd reminded them, not mincing his words. "Yeah, no. Not surprised. Did anything else happen that week?"_

"_One or two things came up," Rufus allowed cautiously, sipping the good whiskey in his glass. "I might'a needed his help sometime around then as well."_

_His eyes had narrowed as he saw the evasiveness in the other man's face. "You?"_

"_Well, I ain't getting' any younger, sometimes things slip your mind."_

_The idea that the tough-as-boots hunter sitting across the table from him could have had any issues with a job was surprising. The fact that Rufus was admitting to it … that was a shock._

"_What happened?" He reached out and picked up the bottle, tipping a little more into Rufus' glass._

"_Wasn't such a big deal," Rufus looked at the glass. "Just got a bit sloppy, is all."_

_He'd been in mid-swallow when that came out and the attempt to draw in a breath at the same time as the liquid was burning down his throat resulted in a coughing attack that lasted several minutes. He looked up at Rufus, eyes still watering, wiping his mouth._

"_Ran into an Okami. Shouldn't have been here at all – they don't leave Japan. Or they didn't," Rufus shook his head, tipping a swallow of whiskey into his mouth. "Bobby said you boys found a lamia?"_

"_Yeah, not even supposed to be able to leave Greece." He'd gestured vaguely. "The Okami, Rufus?"_

"_I thought I'd killed it, but I must'a made a racket 'cos the cops were all over me when I left. I pulled into Bobby's and he helped me to bury it in the yard."_

_He'd frowned. "Yeah, so what was the big about that?"_

"_Ah …" Rufus smiled uncomfortably, looking down at the table. "Turns out it wasn't all the way dead."_

_He'd felt his brows shoot up, his glass hitting the table top with a small thump as it slid from his fingers. "What?"_

"_Heh … yeah, supposed to stab them seven times." Rufus finished the glass, "I might'a only stabbed it five times."_

_Well, that explained some of Bobby's aggravation, Dean thought dazedly. He looked at the other man. "So, it got out?"_

"_Yeah, attacked his neighbour." Rufus reached for the bottle, filling his glass._

"_Bet that went down well?"_

_The smile was rueful. "Oh yeah, I got the full speech."_

"_Bobby happened to have a bamboo dagger blessed by a Shinto priest on hand then?"_

_Rufus laughed. "No, unprepared for that one." He'd looked at him, his eyes very bright. "He improvised."_

_One brow lifted disbelievingly. "Improvised? How the hell do you improvise that?"_

_Rufus leaned across the table, one side of his mouth tucking in. "He used a woodchipper."_

_Dean blinked at the image that filled his head. "Holy crap. You're shitting me."_

"_Nope. Ran it through a woodchipper and that was the end of that," Rufus leaned back, tossing down another mouthful. "'Course, the neighbour was standing near the exit end of the thing and that was the end of that too."_

"_What?"_

"_Never mind."_

Total fucking annihilation. Yeah, that would do the trick. Only question was, what in god's name could they use as that would do the job of a fucking woodchipper?

"You don't look happy," Benny's drawl interrupted his thoughts and he looked over.

"Okami. Hard to kill."

The vampire smiled slightly. "You hunted one before?"

Dean propped his head on his hand, shaking it. "Not personally. They're from Japan, an' I don't – didn't – go international."

"You've had a strange life, _cher_," Benny said after a long moment's silence. Dean's eyes rolled toward him.

"You have no idea." He grinned at the understatement.

"But you liked it, you kept doing it."

Dean closed his eyes briefly. "I used to like it. Once. A long time ago. Then I hated it, hated that we were never out of the firing line." His mouth compressed, lips thinning. "Now … I don't know. I'll let you know when we get out of here."

He rubbed a hand over his face and curled up, looking at the small fire tiredly.

Probably shouldn't have lit a fire, not out in the open like this. But there'd been plenty of dry wood and he was sick of facing each night blind. And it was cheery.

He closed his eyes, seeing the leap and dance of the flames behind the lids. Did time pass faster here than topside? Was he going to get out only to find that no one had noticed he'd gone? Or maybe to find that everyone he'd ever known was dead and buried and had been for the last twenty years? _Great thought to go to sleep on, asshat_.

* * *

The noise dragged him back to the here and now, and he rolled onto his side, looking around the tiny clearing. The vamp wasn't there. The fire had died down almost to coals and he sat up and threw some more branches on, looking up as Benny slid back into the small space.

"Where'd you go?"

"Thought I heard a noise, out there," the vampire turned around and settled himself with his back against a sapling, his face lit by the new flames of the fire. "Just a branch falling."

"Uh huh."

"Who's Sam?" Benny asked, his eyes half-closed as he looked over the fire.

"My brother," Dean frowned slightly. Hadn't he mentioned Sam, at least once? He couldn't remember. "Kid brother. I told you about him."

"No, I don't think you did." Benny shrugged. "You get on?"

Dean's mouth twisted up to one side. "Sometimes."

"An' sometimes not," the vampire said, his attention sharpening slightly.

"And sometimes not," Dean agreed. He shrugged. "It was a screwy upbringing, and … well, a lot happened over the last few years."

"But you still love him, still look out for him?"

Dean turned his head to look at Benny, seeing the almost avid interest in his face. "Yeah, comes with the territory, you know."

The one-sided smile lifted the vampire's mouth. "Not really, three younger sisters all of whom married assholes."

It surprised a snort out of him. "Sam was my job. To protect him. To look after him."

"Yeah, them's the breaks."

Dean closed his eyes, a slight crease appearing between his brows. The vampire had sounded – something, he thought, trying to work out what was different in that dismissive tone. Maybe he was just tired, he thought.

"How'd you end up a vamp, Benny?" he asked. He thought he'd get silence, or a brush off again.

"Long story, _cher_," Benny said slowly. "1932. My boy had died. Wife ran off. I spent a couple of years lyin' in gutters and behind bars and in alleys, dead drunk. One night, it wasn't the police who found me."

Dean listened, hearing his heart booming in big slow thumps in his ears.

"He was … bright, I guess is the word. Bright everything. And strong. Carried me back to his nest with no trouble at all. He fed on me, and I started to feel weak. And he looked strong, hell he _was_ strong."

"He forced you to drink the blood?" Dean's voice was barely a whisper.

"No. I asked him," Benny said, smiling as Dean's head snapped around to look at him. "Don't look so surprised, _cher_. He was strong and I was weak. And I wanted to be strong. Invincible."

Dean heard the odd little rasp in the vampire's voice again. He was pretty sure he hadn't heard it before.

"But vamps can be killed, Benny," he said, sitting up, his hand sliding into his jacket.

"Yeah, well I found that out by and by," the vampire sighed. "But I had a lot of years before then."

Dean shifted his weight to one knee, hiding the movement as he leaned forward slightly.

"Why would you want to kill?"

The vampire looked at him, upper lip lifting as the fangs descended. "Because when nobody wants you, killing is all that's left, _cher_."

The knife flashed in the firelight as it drove toward Benny, Dean launching himself at the vampire. Benny snarled at him and swept the blade aside, but not before Dean saw the skin blacken and crumble where the silver blade had scored the skin. He was twisting aside as the shifter rolled the other way, scrambling to his feet and slipping between the saplings into the darkness.

_Fuck!_ Dean looked back at the fire, and pulled out a branch, rising to his feet and following the shifter out of the copse. He stopped at the edge of the trees. With the torch, he might as well be holding a floodlight, advertising to anything around, including the shifter, his position. But without it, he'd never find Benny in the complete darkness. He swore under his breath and took a step forward, swinging the lit torch from side to side, as he worked his way back toward the forest trail they'd been travelling on.

He spiralled out from the camp, not worrying about moving silently with the flaming branch in one hand, letting his gaze run over every leaf and twig, every rock and patch of ground cover. He found the traces, bit by bit, as he circled the still-visible fire, casting outwards when he saw the first boot print. It had been pressed deep into the soft forest litter, the shifter with his load, carrying the vampire out and away from the copse of saplings.

The tells of the shifter's track jumped out at him and he walked faster. When he saw the soft gleam, half-buried under kicked-over leaf litter, he knew he was close. The mostly-liquefied skin and clumping pseudo-flesh lay in a sticky, wet heap, together with a pile of dirty, blood-stained clothing. He walked past it and stopped at the edge of a short, steep drop, the gully below almost hidden at ground level.

"Benny?" Dean called out softly, jumping down the dropoff and landing awkwardly in the deep drifts of leaves and pine needles. "Benny!"

The branch cast a flickering pool of light around him, lighting the trees closest to him, casting the others into shadow. He saw something move in the shadows of the trees.

"Don't come near or I'll kill him." The shifter stepped out from behind a tree, a few yards away, holding Benny's long-handled timber mace. Where the knife had touched its skin, the skin was continuing to blacken, and Dean saw a small piece break free and drop onto the ground.

He moved sideways, lifting the branch higher, the light reaching through the trees and illuminating the shifter more clearly, illuminating the limp foot just visible beyond the tree trunk beside it as well. He looked at the shifter, seeing the vampire's face.

"The hell you want with a vamp, anyway?" he growled at it, his senses stretching out to encompass the space, the height of the gully walls, the spacing between the trees, the thick softness of the leaf cover over the ground. It would be a bitch of a place for a fight, he thought sourly.

"I didn't want the vamp. I wanted you." The shifter shook its head. "You're human, aren't you? Real, live, flesh and blood human."

Dean's eyes narrowed as he nodded slowly, wondering how to play the avarice he could see in the shifter's eyes to his best advantage.

"There's a way out for a real human," the shifter continued, staring at him. "And you're my walkin', talkin' ticket."

"Could've just jumped me."

"I thought the vampire was keeping you," the shifter said softly. "I didn't realise that you were with it voluntarily."

Dean heard a thin edge of contempt woven through the words. A human travelling with a monster, of their own accord. Something Purgatory hadn't seen, until now.

"He's got a great personality," Dean said, taking another step to the side and a little forward.

The shifter raised the weapon in his hand. "Come closer, and he'll be without his head."

Dean stopped, lifting his hands slightly. "Just want to see that he's still alive."

The shifter moved his foot, kicking at the vampire's boot. Dean heard the soft grunt from behind the tree and let out his breath gently. His knife was in the sheath, against his left hip. He looked at the shifter. Four yards. Have to be underhand so that he didn't telegraph what he was doing. A well-balanced throwing knife would do a full revolution and a half over that distance. He didn't have a well-balanced throwing knife, he had a clunky, hilt-heavy, oddly shaped silver knife with a thick tang that ran almost to the tip. Thing was almost twice as heavy in the hilt as it was in the blade. Great for holding onto. Not so much for throwing.

_Diversion then_, he thought.

"Benny, you hear me?"

"Yeah, Dean, I hear you," Benny's voice was quiet, weary-sounding. "Sorry."

The corner of Dean's mouth lifted slightly. "Yeah, do better next time, can't keep saving your ass, man."

The shifter looked at him suspiciously. "Cut the chatter. You want to save your friend, you're going to come over here and let me touch you."

Dean lifted the branch a little higher. "Sure."

He took a step forward, revising his distance estimates as he used the stride to hide the left side of his body a little, lowering the branch so that it blocked the shifter's view of him at the same time.

The knife slid out easily, and he reversed it, holding it halfway along the blade as he took the next step. He lifted the branch and saw the shifter's gaze rise involuntarily to the fire at the end of the branch, his fingers tightening as he flicked his wrist and the knife turned one full revolution in the air, light spearing from the blade before it disappeared to the cross-guard in the shifter's chest.

He watched the creature's eyes widen, looking down at the thick hilt now protruding from its chest and kept walking, reaching the shifter as its legs collapsed under it and it fell to the ground.

"What took you so long?" Benny turned his head to look at him as he cleared the edge of the tree trunk.

"Cross-town traffic was a bitch." Dean leaned over and pulled the knife from the shifter's chest, wiping the blade and turning his head to look at the vampire.

"Didn't think anyone'd get the drop on you." He grinned and sliced through the roughly made thick bark rope that held the vamp to the tree. Benny smiled ruefully.

"How'd you know it wasn't me?" Benny eased his arms in front of him, rubbing his wrists slowly to get the blood circulating again. Dean offered him his hand, and the vampire took it, letting the man pull him to his feet.

"He didn't sound like you," he said with a shrug. "Didn't have much of a sense of humour."

The vampire snorted. "It's the little things."

* * *

The fire was still burning brightly when they made it back to the small copse. Dean felt Benny's gaze on him as he settled himself on the ground again, sitting back against a sapling's trunk, his eyes on the flames.

"It told you, didn't it?" Benny said finally, looking away.

"Told me what?"

He wasn't sure he wanted to hear this now. Wasn't sure he wanted to know the details of a decision that had changed his view of the vampire. He'd managed to keep from thinking about what Benny was for a while now, content to take him as he came, liking the easy camaraderie that had developed between them.

"Told you how I became a vampire," Benny said softly, his gaze fixed on the tree on the opposite side of the fire.

"It said that you asked to be turned," Dean admitted bluntly. "So that you would be able to kill."

Benny looked down, laughing a little. "An' you heard that an' realised that I am indeed one of the bad guys, eh, _cher_?"

"Didn't sound good," Dean said warily.

"No. It doesn't, does it?" The vampire sighed, leaning back against the tree trunk. "I told you my son died."

Dean looked at him, one brow raised, and nodded.

"He was murdered." Benny stared at the flames, mouth twisting slightly. "I lost my job in '29, along with a few million others. Couldn't get work, couldn't get food. Jacob got sick."

"I took him to the hospital and they fed him, tried to get him better. But he kept getting worse, and no one could tell me why." He licked his lips. "I stayed in the hospital, slept right outside his room, and one night I saw it."

Dean frowned. "Saw what?"

"This … thing, I don't know what it was, maybe you would … it climbed into his room and it sucked the life out of Jacob, right in front of me." The vampire ducked his head, dragging in a deep breath. "I tried to get it off the boy, tried to fight it. It was too strong, just threw me around as if I was nothin'."

"By morning, he was dead."

Dean looked at him, memories scratching at his mind. _Shtriga_, he thought. _Maybe_. Maybe something else, but it was a good bet it was.

"Alice, my wife, she left after that. I didn't blame her. I'd been right there and I couldn't save him." He straightened up a little, shifting against the trunk. "After … the funeral … you know … I hunted for that thing, I looked everywhere, asked everyone, anyone I could think of." He shook his head. "Didn't do any good. People thought I was crazy and I probably was by then."

"I couldn't find it and I couldn't forget it. And I couldn't find any way to get past it." He turned to look at Dean, the corner of his mouth tucking in, the smile derisive. "So I started drinking. Whatever I could get hold of. Figured I might as well kill myself with hooch, it was the only thing that could shut down my head, stop myself from thinking too much."

"Must have been in Baton Rouge when it found me. I don't remember that part too well. I was out cold. When I came to, I was lying in one of the old plantation houses, down by a swamp. A lot of those were abandoned, owners couldn't afford to keep 'em up, to repair 'em and the humidity just sucked the life out of them."

He turned back to the fire, his eyes narrowing as memory filled them. "He looked about forty. Big man, an' all bright – I don't know how else to describe it – bright skin, bright hair, bright eyes. He picked me up with one hand and fed on me, and I felt my strength run out. I kept thinking, over an' over, if I was as strong as him, Jacob'd never have died. I could have killed that monster and saved him. Kind of took my mind off the fact that I was lyin' there dyin' myself."

Dean stayed perfectly still, seeing the rotting timbers and peeling paintwork of the house in his mind's eye, the vampire glowing with the life he was stealing, the man lying on the floor, already sunk in despair.

"He didn't kill me. He stopped and looked at me," Benny said slowly. "An' I asked him if he could make me strong, as strong as he was so that I could hunt my son's killer down and get rid of it."

"He laughed, at first, then he listened, an' then he agreed."

The vampire met Dean's eyes across the fire. "I know you think that was a dumb thing to do, _cher_. An' I agree, it was. But I didn't know how to find that creature, how to hunt it down, how to kill it. And I had to do it … had to."

Dean looked down, feeling a familiar ache in his chest. He was in no position to judge anyone else on what they'd do or had done for their family, not alone, and hurting and desperate.

"He thought it was a big joke, when he did it, and he left me there," Benny looked away. "I figured out most of the stuff I needed to. Didn't find that monster though, never found it. Still don't even know what it was – I've never seen one here."

"Shtriga." The word came out of Dean's mouth reluctantly. He looked up at Benny. "Kind of a witch, but more powerful. They feed off children, feed off their life force until they're dead."

"You've killed them?" Benny's face spasmed as he stared at him.

"One, yeah." Dean shook his head, brushing off the emotions that crowded around those memories. "You couldn't have killed it, Benny. They're only vulnerable when they feed, and it takes iron, consecrated iron rounds to do it."

The vampire looked away, jaw muscle tightening. Dean saw it and closed his eyes. He knew how hard it was to let go of something like that, something that had driven actions that brought life-long punishment. Benny didn't need anyone watching his struggle with his pain.

It occurred to him that it was something he and Benny and Cas had in common, making crappy decisions with devastating consequences. And none of them would change those decisions, he thought, even if they could go back and do it again.

"How'd you die?" he asked quietly. For a long moment the vampire didn't move, just stared at the flickering firelight in front of him. Then he pulled in a deep breath.

"A couple of hunters picked up my trail. I don't know how. Caught up with me in Colorado, in the middle of winter," the vampire said, the smile back on his face, but his eyes shadowed. "Took me down in '65 and when I came to, I was here."

Dean nodded. Probably Elkins and a partner, he thought. He rubbed his hands over his face tiredly. Maybe they'd gotten the shtriga that had taken Benny's kid. There weren't many of them operating in this country. And that one had preferred hospitals. And maybe Elkins had killed the vampire in the real world. And maybe not. Maybe it was just coincidence and there was nothing meaningful to any of it.

He moved, lying down, tucking his arm under his head and staring at the firelight. It had been a dumb idea, but he could see how Benny had thought that the price was worth it. To be a monster, to be able to hunt freely, to be strong and have powers that no human had. For a man who'd lost his son and who'd run out of other options, it would've seemed like the only thing to do.

He could imagine himself doing it.

"I –" Benny started, and Dean closed his eyes.

"Get some rest, Benny," he cut him off. "Okay?"

"Sure," Benny said, and Dean heard the resignation in his voice.

_A man who'd become a monster to become a hunter_. He understood it, but he didn't know what to feel about it. _You don't have to feel anything about it_, the voice in his head said sharply. _It's not your life, not your problem_.

But it was.

In the real world, he'd have taken down Benny in a second, without a thought. In the real world, he'd never have heard this story, never have allowed himself to think about why the monster was. Up there, in the sunshine and the moonlight, monsters just were and hunters killed them.

_So much for everything being black and white down here_, he thought bitterly. It still was, he knew. There was no problem with the way he felt about the vampire down here, the way they were learning to hunt together, to know what each other was thinking, to be able to anticipate each other's plans with no need to ask or confer about it.

He could get on with just about anyone – on a superficial level. His expectations rose proportionally to the level of competence he sensed in people, demanding more the closer they got to his own standards. But he didn't make friends … not easily, not without a struggle. Some of it was the years'-long training he'd had in his childhood, moving from school to school, from town to town, always the outsider, always observing, never participating, and learning through those years that what people said, and what they felt – what they did – were two different things altogether. Some of it was the plain and painful fact that when he got close to someone, he either had to leave, or they died. Or were injured, often because of him. Sometimes by him. It had taken him a while to realise that. And to stop himself from wanting, from needing, any kind of connection that would end up that way.

He shifted his position restlessly. He'd tried normal. It had been a dismal mistake. Even without the grief he'd felt, he knew that trying to be like everyone else wasn't in him. He'd been dying in the little house, lost and losing himself, the core of himself, the only part that he felt meant anything.

_What was left?_ He knew the answer to that, had known it all along perhaps. The one thing he'd been born to do, the one thing he was good at. _But you don't want to do it alone_. The realisation slipped free of the tangle of thoughts and he acknowledged it. No, he didn't want to do it alone. As hard as he'd tried, he couldn't walk the fine line between hunter and monster when he was on his own. It was too easy to slip, to forget why he was doing it, to forget his humanity, when it was just him and them, fighting for survival in the dark.

He needed anchors. People he could trust. He didn't need many but he did need them. And most of the people who'd kept him on the right side of the line were gone. Bobby. Ellen. Rufus.

He had Sam. And Cas. He opened his eyes, looking at the vampire's face in the flickering light. Down here, he had someone else he could trust. Someone who had his back and saw the world through the same perspective. Down here, he felt that clarity, could see the line perfectly, knowing which side he was on and not having to worry about stepping over it.

It was up there that the problems were going to start. _Admit it_, he told himself harshly. _Just admit it now and get it out in the open_. He didn't want to kill Benny. Not down here, and not up there. He didn't want to lose another … _friend …?_

"_Y'know why you're such a good hunter, kid?" Bobby's voice was in his head, an image coalescing in his mind of the hunter's kitchen, the bottle on the table between them, both grime-caked and tired and sore after the night's hunt._

"_You can see them. Clean. Pure. You see what they are. You don't think of 'em as human, so you don't get confused about what they're goin' to do."_

_He hadn't been sure of what the old man had meant. Had, at first, thought that Bobby was suggesting that he wasn't … quite … human._

"_You saying I'm like them, Bobby?"_

"_No, hell no, kid," Bobby had snorted into his glass. "No, I'm sayin' that a lot of hunters can't get out of seeing monsters like people. They make decisions based on what a person would do. You don't. You know what they'll do because you know what's drivin' them."_

_Bobby had looked at him carefully. "You do the same with people, you know, Dean. See how they are, what they're feelin'."_

_He'd frowned at the old man then. "Geez, Bobby, I don't do that."_

Bobby had laughed, and had turned the conversation elsewhere. And he hadn't thought about it for a long time. But some part of him had known that was true. He knew when people were lying. He knew more about Sam than Sam would ever know about him. And he knew that the vampire sitting silently on the other side of the fire had somehow managed to earn his trust, his … loyalty. If Benny had been your average vamp, that would never have happened. He still didn't know how to feel about it.

"Dean."

He opened his eyes, turning his head to look at the vampire.

"What?"

"I – are we good?"

He couldn't see the expression in Benny's eyes, but he could hear the hesitation in his voice.

"Yeah, I think so," he said. He didn't know, not for sure. He wanted it too much.

Benny seemed okay with that. He nodded once and closed his eyes, leaning back against the sapling, the tension seeping out of him.

He'd told him, anyway, Dean thought. Told him that he wouldn't have to hunt him if he didn't kill innocent people. That was going to have to be enough.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

The interior of the crater looked like a grainy black and white photograph, Dean thought, peering down through the needles of the pine they'd chosen to get a bird's eye of it. Dull gleams were scattered across the bowl-shaped ground, the grey light catching random facets of the crystalline rock. _Obsidian_. The name had come back to him as he'd looked at the crater floor pensively. Plenty of it. A shallow river meandered through the centre of the crater, escaping at one side through a narrow gap in the rising rock rim.

There were two ways they could play this game, he thought. Both were risky. Both were highly dependent on factors that lay outside of their control.

"So." Benny looked past him, into the seemingly empty crater. "We either have to find a bamboo knife, blessed by a … a what?"

"Shinto priest."

"Shinto … priest," the vampire said slowly, "or we have to somehow figure out a way to mince them up into dogfood?"

"That's about it," Dean said, glancing at him. "We have one other option."

"And that is?"

"We can misdirect with a game of fetch." He leaned back against the branch, his smile wry.

The vampire looked back into the crater, turning over his memories of seeing the three monsters take down the skinwalker pack. "They're fast."

"Faster than you?"

"I don't know. You're the monster expert."

Dean shrugged. "I don't know for sure, never seen an okami and a vampire run a race together. They're strong, freak strong, pick-up-a-bus strong, but then so're you."

"An' you want me to draw 'em off, while you go in and get the glass?"

Dean grinned suddenly. "Sucks being the one with the super-powers, don't it?"

Benny looked at him sourly.

"You see that little notch?" Dean leaned over, looking at the rim of the crater closest to them, the vampire turning his head to follow his eyeline.

"Yeah, I see it," Benny watched the water boil as it was forced between the narrow sides of the crater wall, spuming outward and falling for fifty or sixty feet to a jagged jumble of rock in the pool below. "What about it?"

"I've been watching it all morning." Dean turned his head, scanning the water upstream from the slide. "See that log? Coming down now?"

Benny nodded.

"Watch it."

They saw the log lift up suddenly as the speed and strength of the water caught it when it entered the cleft, twisting around in the air as it was almost catapulted out. It fell and disintegrated when it hit the rocks, splinters and bark and raw wood flying in all directions.

"All right, you've got my attention." The vampire kept his gaze on the black rocks at the bottom of the fall.

"You go in, on the other side," Dean pointed out the shallow gravel scree on the opposite of the crater. "Wait until they see you, then take off for the river. Get into it just before it goes over."

The vampire's eyes narrowed. "You trying to kill me?"

One corner of Dean's mouth lifted. "Trust me. Look at where the water comes out, on this side. What d'you see?"

Benny turned back to the crater. He saw it at once, now that he was looking for it, his lips curved up in a reluctant smile.

"Yeah, okay."

"If they catch up, or if anything happens, I'll be right behind them. I might not be able to kill 'em, but I can probably hack off enough body parts to slow them down while we get out." Dean turned away from the crater, leaning back against the trunk of the tree. "So …?"

Benny's brows lifted slightly and fell. "So. It's a plan."

"Then let's light this candle."

"What?"

"Never mind." Dean let out an exhale and turned, reaching out for the branch closest to swing down to the next. He really had to remember that the guy had been out of circulation since before he'd been born.

* * *

Benny walked across the open ground, boots crunching over the shattered and broken rock and glass underfoot. Nothing moved in the crater, the air still and heavy in the bowl, and Dean watched as the vampire lifted a hand to wipe his face. He wondered if they'd somehow managed to luck out on a day when the okami were off visiting family. It didn't seem likely but there hadn't been anything to show that the creatures were there, hiding or not.

Benny stopped short of the centre, looking at the river that was wide here between the shallow banks in front of him. He looked around, head inclined slightly, listening to the deep silence.

Dean felt sweat trickling down his neck. The vamp was well and truly exposed out there, but nothing had happened. Grab a piece of glass and get your ass out of there, amigo, he thought, scanning the bowl-shaped crater.

As if he'd heard, Benny looked down and crouched, picking up a long sliver of obsidian, the light flashing off a faceted plane as he straightened up and turned it over in his hands.

They came then, erupting from unseen holes in the crater floor, one rocketing toward the vampire from only fifty yards. Dean's jaw muscle bulged as he clamped his teeth together, unable to give the vampire warning without giving his own position away. Benny's head had snapped up anyway, and he turned in a blur of faded colour, head down and racing for the edge of the crater and where the river spilled over the edge.

The closest okami kept gaining; the two others were flanking him, the three monsters converging like an arrowhead to a single point. Dean slithered down through the sparse vegetation on the side of the crater, hands and feet spread out and catching the clumps of grass and small shrubs as the scree moved out from under him, pebbles sliding down the incline and rolling onto the crater floor. He hit the ground running, angling slightly to follow the line of the okami, eyes scanning the ground for what he wanted. The longer pieces of volcanic glass glinted softly up at him in the flat light and he scooped them up, feeling the razor sharp edges slicing into his hands when he tightened his grip.

He watched Benny do a long flat dive into the river, close to where the crater's wall had been eroded away into a narrow defile. All three okami dove in after him, black hair seal-slick when they bobbed to the surface amidst the foaming spray of the white water, the river tightly compressed in the gap. Dean pushed harder, unable to see the vampire's head in the churning cataract. He saw one okami spat out the other side, flying into the air with an ear-piercing shriek, and falling. The monster's scream was cut off abruptly when it reached the bottom.

The second monster followed closely behind, reaching desperately for the rock walls, claws scrabbling along the edges and hollows and holding for a second before the speed and power of the water broke its hold and it too was thrown out over the cliff's edge, a scream tearing out of its throat, of rage or fear.

Dean reached the edge of the river and jumped, the span here no more than nine or ten feet, soaked as he passed through the spray of the torrent, surrounded by rainbows for one surreal second. He slid across the wet rock on landing, unable to stop, and slammed into the black rock wall, his hiss of pain drowned out by the roaring of the water below.

Climbing the crater wall as fast as he could, he ignored the sting of the cuts on his hands, and the dull creak he could feel in his chest, one or more ribs fractured and moving in there, scrambling in between the jagged, saw-tooth rocks that lined the top.

* * *

Benny hung by one hand from the twisted acacia that was clinging to the other side of the crater wall, several deep slashes over his face and neck and chest from the claws of the third okami, hanging on the other side of the small tree. Dean looked down at the creature from the high edge of the rim, noting the monster's long, prehensile toes, tipped with scimitar-curved claws, that gripped the branch holding it as it swung out of the way of the vampire's mace.

The top of the wall overhung the tree and he looked for a way to get down to it, without it seeing or hearing him, without him having to drop onto the tree as well. He could see the weight and motion of the two of them had already loosened the tree's roots, shaking out the thin soil that filled the crack from which it had grown. Another couple of hundred pounds might send them all onto the rocks.

_This is such a bad idea_, he thought, a couple of minutes later, wriggling his feet slightly to reassure himself that they were tightly wedged and he wasn't going to fall head-first down the cliff side. He eased himself over the edge of the overhang, holding his breath as his ribs flexed against the unyielding rock, then letting it out when he was able to get past them. The sharp-edged rock cut into his stomach, and ground into his hips as he wriggled down inch by inch.

The vampire must have seen him, but kept his gaze fixed firmly on the okami, and Dean was in reaching distance of one muscular, scaly leg before the creature realised he was there.

He grabbed an ankle, slicing through the tendons at the back of the knee as the okami twisted around, hissing furiously at him. One long-fingered hand reached up and caught him along the jaw as he jerked his head back. He swung the long glass splinter automatically in reaction, and both man and monster watched in astonishment as the obsidian cut effortlessly through the flesh and bone of the hand; thumb, and fingers and reddened claws falling away.

At close range, the scream was deafening. Dean winced as the sound kept ringing in his ears seconds after his backhanded slash had cut the throat of the okami and sent her cartwheeling down the cliff to be broken apart on the rocks below. He shook his head and looked at Benny. The vampire looked back at him, blood dripping slowly from the wounds on his face, running into his mouth as he smiled slowly.

"Next time, _you_ can be the decoy and _I'll_ pick up the glass," he said, the drawl pronounced.

Dean's answering smile was mocking. "Yeah … _next_ time … whatever. Just get your ass up here and haul me up before I fall too."

* * *

They climbed out of the crater and walked down across the bare rocky ground to the forest below, the glass wrapped up as well as possible and secured. Dean looked at the long cuts criss-crossing his palms. The bleeding had stopped but they felt on fire. He was surprised that he hadn't cut right through to the bone, the edges had been so sharp. He drew in a shallow breath and felt the lower ribs on his left side flex a little. If they could find somewhere to hole up for the hours of darkness, he'd be fine by next light.

He looked up, seeing the higher peaks just above the next ridge. Somewhere over there, the angel was waiting for him.

"So, what else do we need?" He looked over at the vampire walking beside him.

Benny looked up at the not-sky thoughtfully. "Let's find somewhere to hole up."

Dean sighed. "C'mon, Benny."

The vampire looked at him. "I want to show you something, an' I don't want to be out in the open like this when I do."

"Show me what?" Dean asked cautiously.

"You'll see, _cher_," Benny said and lengthened his stride as they entered the forest. "Trust me."

"This had better be good," Dean muttered as he followed him into the shadows of the trees.

* * *

Dean looked at the spidery, archaic writing on the much-folded and wrinkled sheet Benny had given him, tilting it toward the fire in an effort to make out the words. At least they were words, he thought unhappily, English after a fashion, although the phrasing and the spelling had thrown him off a few times.

They were deep in the forest, on the gently sloping bank of a small, winding stream that was headed, roughly, in the right direction. Around them, lit up by the firelight, the trunks of the trees pressed close, bracken and fern and rambling vines growing thickly between them, screening them and cutting the thin cold wind that had risen when darkness fell.

"Benny … this is going to be impossible," Dean said slowly, looking over at the vampire.

"Not impossible, just tricky," Benny contradicted him mildly, throwing another branch onto the flames.

"Bone of the first beast of Purgatory," Dean read out, flicking a glance sideways. "You know what that is, don't you?"

"What your friend, the angel, was so afraid of? Yeah." Benny nodded. "They aren't impossible to kill, just difficult."

Dean shook his head, looking back at the sheet. It wasn't paper, he realised suddenly, feeling the suppleness between his fingertips. The thought made him want to drop it, remembering what the dragon's book had been made of. He wrinkled up his nose but kept a grip on it.

"Blood of a repentant human soul, freely given," he continued, scowling. "Doesn't say how much blood. I could repent, I guess."

Benny shook his head. "No. It needs all the blood."

"All of it? So we have to find someone who will let us drain them dry?" He looked at the vampire in disbelief. "Willingly? Offering to do it?"

"That's what it takes."

"This –" He looked back at the sheet. "This is impossible."

"No. It's not." Benny leaned forward, staring at him. "It's just not easy. Nothin' here is easy, Dean."

"You think?" Dean snapped irritably. "This is to open the portal – what about what you need, for your soul ride?"

Benny looked away. "The black glass. The earth of Purgatory." He reached into his jacket, pulling out a small bag. "Most of what I need, I've found, collected over the years. I started looking the day I saw the spell. I only need one more thing."

"Yeah? What's that?" Dean looked at the bag curiously. He raised his gaze to the vampire when Benny didn't answer.

"What?"

Benny shrugged slightly. "I need your consent."

Dean's brows drew together as he saw the vampire's discomfort. "Well, you got that."

The vampire looked away and Dean watched him, the frown deepening.

"What? It's just verbal consent, right? You're not gonna tell me I have to kiss you or anything, are you?"

Benny snorted, wiping his hand over his face as he turned back. "No. Just verbal, _couillon_."

"Don't be swearing at me in your hick language, asshat." Dean grinned at him, relieved to see the vampire's reluctant answering smile. He hadn't realised that Benny really hadn't known that he'd already committed to getting him out of here.

"We're in this pile of crap together, right? You got my back?"

"Right, _cher_," Benny said, mouth twisting up to one side. "You're right. I got your back."

"And I've got yours. So, okay then." Dean looked back down at the skin in his hands. "But this stuff … this is a different ballgame altogether."

"Blood and bone and earth and fire, Dean, that's all it is."

He looked up, one brow raised. "'A life unknown preserved in solid fire.' You wanna tell me what is?"

The vampire smiled. "When I was a kid, there used to be travelling folk, who'd bring around all kinds of things for sale. One time, I saw this round yellow stone – clear, like glass. Inside it was a bug, a spider, I think." He looked up at Dean, head tilted to one side. "I figure that's what it means. No insects here, and the stone looked like fire."

"Amber?" Vague memories of _Jurassic Park_ … the old guy's walking stick … floated through Dean's mind. "Yeah, but we're not gonna find that here."

Benny's smile widened. "Those people who are holdin' your friend, _cher_, they brought a lot of –"

He stopped, eyes narrowing as they both heard the sound outside of the clearing. A ripple through the undergrowth, as if something had moved fast past them. Dean could see the shiver of the leaves of a shrub between two of the trunks.

It was too late to hide the fire, he thought, whatever it was knew they were there and he wasn't going to fight something that fast in the dark. He reached down for the stone axe by his side, seeing Benny's fingers closing around his mace at the same time. Most of the monsters down here were fast-moving, but only a couple of them were so fast that the eye didn't register them at all. He put his hand down and got his feet under him, ears straining to catch the slightest hint of where the thing was.

He didn't have time to feel the hand around his neck, or the savagely powerful jerk that lifted him bodily from the ground before his head hit the trunk of the closest tree and he was out.

* * *

Pain. Darkness. Cold, wet stone under his fingers. Frenzied snarls and a howling, somewhere close by, the sounds distorted, muffled.

He opened his eyes and couldn't see a thing, the darkness so thick and the air so still, he thought he had to be underground. Rolling unsteadily onto his knees, he felt around, the stone under him as far as he could reach. _Cave? Hollow?_ He reached into the pocket of his jacket for the lighter, thumb running the wheel. The flame was bright and he squinted as he held the lighter higher.

_Perfect_. He was in a hole. Getting to his feet, he lifted the lighter to the extent of his arm's reach, turning around slowly. No more than two or three feet away on every side, the rock walls rose around him, enclosing him. Trapping him. He couldn't see the top, the darkness past the range of the flame complete.

The walls were close enough to straddle; he might be able to get out that way. He lifted his left hand to the stone and grimaced, dropping it as sharp pain stabbed into him. Looking down at the shoulder, he could see the puncture marks through the jacket, and he lifted the lapel aside slowly, mouth twisting as he saw them continue through his shirts, the holes soaked through with his blood. Guess that was where the wendigo grabbed him, he thought queasily. He looked up again, ignoring the ferocious increase in the pounding at the back of his head.

"Dean!" The vampire's cry was hoarse, thickened.

"Down here!" He yelled, closing his eyes as the effort and the echoes crashed against the pain in his head.

"How the hell do I kill it?" Benny sounded closer, his panting breath echoing softly from the walls.

_Shit. Fuck. Shit._

"You have to burn it!" He stared upward. There was nothing he could set fire to here, not even his clothes which were soaked by the water he'd been lying in. "Get a branch, a big one, dry."

Somewhere, above the light, above the top of the hole, he could hear crashing, the vampire's heavy, tired-out breaths and the deeper reverberations of an almost subsonic growling.

"Benny?!"

A guttural roar filled the hole, bouncing from the walls, slamming against his ears, filling the space completely. Dean stared up as it turned into an enraged howl, then the scream rose over it, agonised and shrill, and he felt himself freezing at that sound, bubbling and liquid and so saturated with pain his gut heaved violently. He was moving before he realised it.

_Sonofabitch, motherfucking, cocksucking bastard monster MOTHERFUCKER!_

Flicking off the lighter, he braced his hand against the side of one wall and his foot on the other, a groan leaking from between his clenched teeth as he lifted the injured arm and put his weight on it, getting a foothold and levering himself up between the two solid surfaces. White-hot agony seared through the shoulder muscles as he shifted the pressure back to the other hand, boot toe scrabbling on the rough wall for anything, a crack, an edge, a fucking fracture, finding it and again forcing himself up, eyes shut tight and jaw rigid as he struggled to force the pain away for long enough to find the next hold. Each time the pressure went onto his left side, he could feel the blood spurting out of him, his clothing soaked and sticking to him, and the pain wrapped itself around him, making it impossible to draw in a breath, to do anything other than drive his body to do what he wanted, to take his weight and push down against the cold stone as he reached for the next hold, for the next crack, for the next few inches of upward movement. The pounding in his head had receded … or been drowned out … and his eyes were stinging from the sweat that was dripping into them, his hair wet, back wet, hands curled into claws as he forced them harder against the stone to either side. Somewhere, deep inside, away from the agony that was rending his body, and the fear that was gutting his mind, he kept a single idea intact, a mantra, a prayer.

He felt the lip of the hole without recognising it, shifting his feet up again, and almost falling back as his other hand reached up into empty air, swinging around desperately for the next hold. He fell forward and gripped the edge, letting out the scream that had been jammed in his throat for the past unknown length of time, scrabbling in the thin dirt that covered the stone for something to stop him from falling, back down there, into the dark. He found the crease in the rock and rammed his fingers into it, tightening them into a fist to anchor his weight and pulling himself clear, heart and head beating violently together, his breath whistling out of the rawness of his throat, the bone-deep shudders of reaction rippling through his frame.

"Benny …"

He rolled onto his side, feeling for the Zippo. It was no lighter up here than it had been down in the hole but the air was moving at least. He felt dizzy and nauseated, and got to his feet slowly, flicking the lighter and moving away from the dark circle of the hole. Wouldn't do to miss his step and fall back down there, not now.

"Benny?"

He couldn't hear anything and he lifted his hand, the pool of light from the small flame spreading outward. He was in a cave, a wide, but shallow cave; he could see the trees beyond the mouth, the light catching the needles of pine and spruce. He stumbled forward, his left leg giving way as pain sheeted down his side from the movement of his arm, catching himself by an act of will and wiping the sweat from his face as he looked at the ground just outside. At the edge of the pool, he saw a hand, fingers loosely curled and he felt his heart sink at its stillness.

"Benny!"

He misjudged the drop from the stone ledge to the sloping forest floor, his foot hanging out in the emptiness too long, and he pitched forward, twisting frantically to take the impact on his right side. The effort didn't help as much as he'd hoped for, the deep puncture wounds exploded excruciatingly and he widened his eyes as his vision clouded, swearing viciously under his breath until the grey went away and the agony began to ease. Rolling over, he felt a thick branch beneath his side, and closed his hand around it, lighting the Zippo and holding the shaking flame under the dry needles at the end by an act of will until they caught.

He was turning to get onto his knees again when it came for him, the sagging grey skin lit clearly by the flaming brand, the deep-set red eyes narrowing against the brightness of the light. Dean didn't even think, just reacted, thrusting the branch over the vampire's body and into the sunken chest of the wendigo, the turn becoming a stride, as he rose to his feet, the branch going deeper, the weight of his body and the force of his momentum driving it in completely. Light and darkness warred with his vision and he could feel the overload coming for him, too much pain everywhere to hold down and ignore.

The creature threw back its head as its chest cavity filled with fire, elongated arms stretched out to either side, the long-clawed hands opening and closing helplessly while the body burned fast and hot and deep.

Dean fell on top of Benny, shielding him from the incandescent fire, his face against the vampire's chest, arms wrapped over them both as the small clearing and the cave were lit to unbearable brilliance, every shadow burned away, the humanoid-shaped torch burning faster and faster against the blackness of the forest.

He heard the sigh as the ashes fell and lifted his head, looking around. The clearing was blurry, again just lit by the still burning end of the branch where it lay on the the wendigo's burned remains. Looking down, he sucked in a shallow breath, whistling through his clenched teeth when he saw the long, deep claw marks across Benny's chest and abdomen, across the lower half of the vampire's throat. In the flickering light of the burning branch, the vamp's clothing seemed to be all red, soaked through and sticky. His own clothes were soaked through as well, he could feel the trickle of liquid along his skin. He didn't think it was his blood that was covering the vamp, though. He lifted his hand from the ground next to the vampire and saw it was coated in blood, the overpowering coppery scent filling his nostrils. Leaning back a little, he could see that the dirt around Benny was red.

He eased himself off Benny's unmoving body, his fingers reaching to touch the vampire's neck, resting on the side where the big artery ran. Closing his eyes, he tried to feel anything there. _Did the soul of the vampire even have a pulse? Did vampires have pulses in the real world?_ He couldn't remember, couldn't think.

_You can't die, not really. You can get torn apart. But in a few days, you usually come to, somewhere else, mostly back to normal._

The words came back to him and he opened his eyes, looking down at the vampire. He was still here, hadn't disappeared, maybe that meant he was still alive.

"Benny? You still here, man?" His voice was barely a whisper, and he cleared his throat. "Benny?"

"S-s-stop … y-y-yellin' … at me, _cher_."

Dean saw Benny's eyes open a fraction, the blue irises barely visible beneath the bloodied lashes. He felt the dried sweat and blood and grime on his face crack apart, the smile widening as he looked down.

* * *

The small clearing was ablaze with light. Wendigo generally kept a territory to themselves, didn't like to hunt with others of their kind, but Dean wasn't taking any chances. Six fires burned around the perimeter, shielding the shallow mouth of the cave and lighting it brightly.

Benny lay on the dirt to one side of the cave mouth, eyes closed, his breathing slightly unsteady. It had taken Dean a long time to get him into the partial shelter, to look at the wounds and do what he could for the vamp. Rest would take care of them, as it had all the other times, he thought, trying to head off the worry he felt. Of course, he'd never seen the vampire so torn apart before.

_Everybody loses everybody. And then one day, boom. Your number's up, but at least you're making a difference._

He rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the grunge coating it with a slight grimace of distaste. He was going to be hearing the Treasury agent's voice in his thoughts for a long time. He'd already lost everyone. Everyone but his brother. And who the hell knew what had happened to Sam when he and Cas had been sucked down here? Maybe Sam was dead too. Maybe Cas was. The thought bit and he shoved it away, not needing any more pain to round out the night.

Turning his head, he looked down at the vampire. Benny was his ticket out. Back home. His only ticket. The goddamned vampire had barrelled into a one on one with a fucking wendigo to save him, he thought, his mouth twisting down as that played in his imagination.

Maybe there was something more he could do for him. The vampire might not be able to die permanently, might be resurrected elsewhere in Purgatory if this … incarnation …body … apparition … whatever the hell it was … gave up and let go. Would Benny remember him if that happened? He hadn't asked about that. Would he be able to find him again, if he just disappeared? He couldn't risk it, he knew. Cas was waiting for him. Life was waiting for him.

He saw Benny's eyelids flicker slightly and moved over to sit beside him. In the constantly shifting light from the fires, the wounds looked bad. He was half-convinced he could see into the vampire's throat, through the tattered skin.

"You alright? Can I do anything?" he asked quietly. Benny opened one eye, rolling it around to see him.

"Jus' rest."

"What about blood?" Dean's mouth compressed as forced the question out, his emotions see-sawing wildly. He was offering … himself. And that scared the hell out of him. But the risk … the risk of losing the vampire, losing Cas, maybe losing the chance to get out … that scared him more.

He saw Benny's eye focus sharply on him, questioningly.

"Fresh, human blood. My blood," he clarified, meeting the vamp's gaze and holding his doubts under tight control.

Benny's reaction was instant and shocking. "No!"

The word grated out of the torn throat, thick but distinct and Dean recoiled a little from the vehemence of it, feeling a frisson of fear skitter up his spine.

Benny closed his eyes tightly, as if he were struggling with something alive and powerful, trying to take control of him. "No, _cher_, no. Don' – don't say that again."

"Benny, if you die, it's going to take –"

"No!" The vampire opened his eyes, and they were brighter, the colour suddenly vivid, the neon blue of the desert sky. "Go 'way, Dean."

Dean nodded stiffly, moving to the other side of the cave. He sat down, shifting until he found a position that hurt the least, tipping his head back against the wall and closing his eyes.

Had it been hunger, in the vampire's eyes? He'd offered because he trusted him but he hadn't considered that the vampire might not trust himself, might not be able to trust himself.

Benny had seemed mostly unmoved by the vampire's usual appetites. No fresh blood probably helped with that, he thought. He hadn't done any more than kill the monsters they'd encountered; the closest he'd seen to bloodlust had been when the vamp had come for him when he'd been taken by the ghouls. Benny'd been glowing with light … or power … or whatever it was that the monsters took when they killed each other, but it hadn't looked like the expression that had been on his face a moment ago. Hadn't looked like madness.

Was that something that the vampire felt here, where fresh blood was so rare? Or would he be that way when they got back home? He let out a soft exhale. Vampires fed, he knew that. Didn't matter if he did it gently or violently, the end result was going to be the same. _And you're letting him out_, the thought slipped in. _Out there to take life after life, knowing what he is, knowing what he'll do_. He felt a dull flush of guilt. He would talk to Benny about it, he thought, tell him to take the criminals, take the low-lives, tell him to steer clear of John Q and leave them be. _And that'll ease your conscience? That the lives – the human lives – he takes are not pure and innocent?_ He scowled slightly at the thought. What else was he supposed to do? The real world had predators, of all shapes and sizes and inclinations. Was he supposed to wipe out the grizzly population in Alaska because occasionally they took campers? Kill all the drunk drivers because they ruined lives more effectively than any number of monsters could?

It wasn't a satisfactory argument. He was a hunter. His job wasn't to police the world, just the monster population. To save people from being preyed on by the creatures that filled the night. Benny was one of those creatures.

Shades of grey. Again. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. _But they're not, not really shades of grey. A monster is a monster is a monster._ He pushed the thought away and down. He didn't need moral dilemmas right this second. He needed to rest. To heal. He wondered how long it would take for them to heal up enough to get moving again. More than twelve hours, he thought. He didn't feel so hot himself.

* * *

It took three days.

Benny didn't move, didn't speak, didn't open his eyes. After spending the first day checking on the vampire periodically, Dean withdrew and left him to it. He cleaned his weapons, honing the edges of the stone axes, and trying to take some of the edges off the lower end of one of the obsidian splinters, so that he wouldn't cut his hand to ribbons every time he grabbed the goddamned things. He thought about trying to wash the blood from his clothes then gave it up as a bad idea. They would get clean – cleaner – the next time they crossed a stream or river, he decided. He kept the fires burning, even through the daylight hours, collecting wood for them and setting several long, sturdy branches near the mouth of the cave in case anything else came calling and he needed a weapon or extra light easy to hand.

When the light strengthened on the fourth morning, the vampire sat up, stretching and yawning, the fangs lowering until they covered his teeth, then retracting again. He rolled to his feet, looking out of the cave at the clearing, at the fires burning low in a semi-circle around them.

"We should get moving," he said, not looking at the man watching him.

"How're you doing?"

"Healed," Benny said shortly, his gaze scanning the forest. "It'll take at least two days to get where they're holding your friend."

Dean nodded, getting to his feet and picking up his axe. Without looking around, Benny walked between the fires and out of the clearing, heading in the direction of the peaks where Castiel was being held.

Dean followed him out of the clearing and into the woods.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

The valley was huge, wide and shallow, the forest spread out on the floor, more tightly packed as it flowed up the slopes to either side. They stood together on the ridge, looking down over it in silence. On the other side of the far rise, there was a river, then the climb to the higher hills where the vampire thought the angel had been taken.

"We get across this, and the river, then we'll be a day out of the human camp," Benny said quietly.

"Good," Dean said, his gaze searching the peaceful looking forest. "Anything living here that we need to keep clear of?"

"Not that I know of, but I haven't crossed here before," Benny said, brow furrowed as he turned his head to look at him. "Dean."

Dean heard the change in the vampire's tone and nodded once. "It's fine, Benny. We're good."

"It's hard to keep control once the –"

"Don't need the details," he cut Benny off sharply, flicking a sideways look at him, and returning his gaze down the slope. "Let's get going."

He turned away and started picking his way down the steep bank to the edge of the trees. It wasn't fine. Nothing was fine. But it wasn't the vamp's problem. He wasn't the one who wanted two and two to equal five.

Benny had been silent for most of the first day of travelling, after they'd left the wendigo territory. After a few attempts at conversation, Dean had given up, resigning himself to the silence, concentrating on making sure they moved trackless and silently through the tightly folded hills. The next day Benny had tried to apologise, tried to explain, but there was no need for it, and no matter what the vampire said, the easy friendship that had been there between them before had gone, and no amount of talk would get it back.

He was struggling to keep his doubts about what he was doing out of his thoughts. It wasn't just Sam's voice telling him it was a bad idea now, he'd heard his father, Bobby, even Ellen over the last day and a half, pointing out the problems in detail. He'd spent hours arguing in his head the previous night before realising that the effort was futile, he was only arguing with himself.

_You see what they are_, Bobby'd told him. Maybe once, but not any more. He couldn't get out of here without Benny, and he couldn't kill the vamp once they were out. And that was the way it was.

_Just do what you have to do_, he told himself, as he walked into the shadows of the wood, _and figure out the rest later_. It had worked in the past, it would work now.

Under the trees, it was cooler and dim, the evergreens cutting out the light, the ground under the perpetually bare, deciduous aspen and birch and oak dappled in varying shades of grey. Without the usual noises of the birds and animals that would inhabit a forest like this in the real world, the silence seemed dead, end-of-the-world dead. He looked through the shadows and light as he walked, still half-expecting to see the flash of a squirrel's tail in the branches, or at least the random, quicksilver movements of birds in the upper canopy. But there was nothing, not even a breeze shifted the foliage above them. He might as well have been walking through a painting.

In some ways, that silence, that lifelessness was good. It made hearing an approach easier, with no need to differentiate between the harmless wildlife and a potential threat. In other ways, though, it kept underlining the fact that he was trapped in a world where, in the most fundamental sense of the word, nothing was real. _He_ could die, but no matter how many monsters he killed, here they would be resurrected, reborn to hunt him again. And again.

It would make a helluva training ground for hunters, he thought humourlessly, if getting out at the end of a tour wasn't so goddamned difficult. Solid fire … the memory of the conversation before the wendigo attacked came back, and he slowed, half-turning to look back at Benny.

"Before the wendigo came, you were saying something about the things we need to open the portal?"

Benny looked at him, nodding slowly. "Those humans, the people who're holding your friend. They brought a lot of stuff in with them," he said, rubbing his fingers through the short beard that covered his jaw. "I saw the yellow stone –"

"Amber," Dean corrected him distractedly.

"Amber, yeah. And they'd been hunting, even when I was watching them – they'd brought down at least one of those black monsters," Benny continued, watching Dean's face.

"So we might find a bone there?" Dean ducked his head. "That's pretty thin, man."

"I don't think they stopped hunting," the vampire said, feeling a shiver run down his back. "They were enjoying it too much."

_That just left the repentant soul_, Dean thought, feeling a half-hysterical laugh rising in his throat. Well, _if_ the people had hunted a levi, and had dressed it and left the bones lying around somewhere. He stopped walking for a moment, head bowed as he struggled with the impulse to vent his feelings with a good old-fashioned primal scream.

"You alright?" Benny stopped, looking at him. Dean lifted his head, and looked back, shaking his head slowly.

"No, bro, not alright," he said unsteadily. "Long way from all right."

"It was their spell, or incantation or whatever, Dean, their book," Benny said quietly. "They'll have whatever it needs."

"Then why haven't they left already?" Dean straightened up, meeting the vampire's eyes. "Why have they stuck around all this time?"

Benny shrugged. "I think they like it here."

Dean shook his head again.

"And, I think they were looking for another doorway, not the one we want," Benny added slowly, remembering the conversations he'd overheard.

"You know, I know there's all kinds of crazy up there, but this is just a whole new level." Dean let his breath out in a gusty exhale. "Okay, only game in town, right?"

"Pretty much, _cher_," Benny agreed.

* * *

The forest was open and easy to move through, and they followed the broad paths between the trees walking side by side. A gun over his shoulder and the real noises of a forest and they could've been normal hunting buddies, Dean thought absently. He'd enjoyed the dawn hunts with Bobby, although he and Sam had never brought home anything bigger than bunnies, sometimes birds. A smile flickered over his face as he remembered the older man's rants on the way back to the truck, this deer missed or that one, and don't think I don't know what you two were doing … they'd just about driven him crazy, missing all time.

His heart contracted a little. No more hunts with Bobby. No more drunken talks with Rufus. No more playing pool and trying to fathom what Ash was trying to tell them at the roadhouse. No more friends.

He'd told Cas that he needed him, and it was true. The angel was the only one left, aside from Sam, who knew about him, knew his life, knew his scars. Knew what he'd done and why he'd done it. He'd spent so much time wishing that no one had known, that he could pretend that it had all never happened, that he hadn't realised how much he needed someone to know, needed someone to know what that had felt like. It wasn't something that could ever come up in a regular conversation. It took years of trust and … what? Mutual comfort? Understanding? Guilt? And even then … he'd told Bobby … one night at his place, not long after he'd said goodbye to Lisa and Ben and he and the old man had decimated a couple of bottles in front of the fire. He'd told him. Told him about Hell and what he'd done and what he'd felt. After awhile he hadn't been able to look at Bobby's face, scrunched up in the shadow of the brim of his cap, because his sincere and honest reactions had made it all so much worse.

There was no going back. No undoing what was done. Sam could say it helped to talk about it, but it didn't. Just made him feel worse. Now, at least he didn't need to see that sympathy at the back of the old man's eyes when he looked at him and know what he was thinking. That sucked, that he thought Bobby's death had a plus – of any kind – but it was true too. Cas … the angel had been there. Had seen it for himself. Had known without having to be told, without him having to strip himself naked to show it. He had been there and _knew_, and had still been a friend. It was a fucking hard act to follow.

The noise didn't really impinge on him at first. It sounded a little like dried nuts, rattling on a branch and he kept walking, lost in his past, in the certainty that no matter what happened, no matter what it took, he couldn't lose Cas too.

Benny stopped. Dean slowed and looked back at him, brow lifting. The vampire shook his head briefly, then tilted it to one side, eyes almost closed.

Then he heard it again. Not so much like dried nuts … a whispering, chittering, rattling sound that he'd heard once before … in a small church in Wisconsin and the memory came back as they surged out from behind the trees.

The one he'd faced had worn a robe, the deep hood and length hiding almost all of the creature. The two that writhed toward them were in their full natural glory and the sight froze him, eyes wide, mouth open.

In myth, Lamia was a Libyan queen, cursed to become a child-eating daemon, her beauty and body twisted and reshaped into that of a half-serpent, half-hag, the rattle on the end of her tail the only warning her victims had of their impending doom. In Wisconsin, Dean had seen little other than the exceptionally elongated fingers and hands of the monster, the white and diseased-looking skin as the hood had flapped around its face. Here, the monsters lived up to the myth. Fine grey hair, held in patches and clumps to the too-long skulls flew back as their lower bodies slid in s-shaped movements across the forest floor, scattering leaf matter and pine needles to either side like the wash of a ship. Their upper bodies were almost skeletal, the bones pressing sharply through the corpse-white, mottled flesh, the muscles of the arms sagging in ropey strands, the long dugs flapping against the ribs as their bodies undulated in time with their tails. Impossibly long faces were stretched out further, mouths open and filled with snaggle teeth, sharp as knives and pointing in every direction, the blood-red eyes wide and pupilless, fixed on him with the same unblinking, hypnotic focus as that of a snake.

He felt a hand close on the collar of his jacket, nails scratching the back of his neck, and he was yanked backwards, blinking rapidly, free of the stare of the monsters, Benny's voice yelling in one ear.

"Move your fucking ass!"

_A silver knife blessed by a priest. Rosemary and salt and burning. Nope, none of it helped. Goddamn it, what was the story on these specific ritualistic recipes?_

"Can we kill them?" Benny panted as they raced along the wide trail, glancing back over his shoulder at the receding monsters.

"No," Dean shifted his grip on his axe handle, throwing a fast look back. "Don't have the stuff it needs."

"Can we outrun them?"

Dean didn't know. "I think so, we're faster, just not sure how far we have to go before they give up."

They'd been almost halfway across the valley floor when the lamia appeared. They were fit and strong, their long legs eating up the distance, but every time either shot a look over a shoulder, the lamia were behind them, the same distance from them, coming steadily with mouths open wide and the flat grey light gleaming off their fangs.

The ground started to rise and running became climbing, then scrambling as it steepened further and the trees crowded close together and the undergrowth tore at them, catching their clothes and their weapons, slowing them down. Dean could feel his lungs burning, his muscles shaking as he tried to get through faster, another backward glance showing the monsters were closing the gap, moving unimpeded up through the dense growth, not even fucking breathing heavily.

He looked up the hill and could see the trees thinning out ahead, the not-sky clear through them. _Level ground would help_, he thought, _down hill even more so_. He pushed harder, swearing furiously as a clump of brambles snagged the long blade of his axe and almost pulled him over when it refused to come free. He heaved and the brambles let go reluctantly, swinging back and stabbing him, the fast look over his shoulder driving him forward in near panic, the lamia little more than twenty or thirty feet behind them now.

They burst through the last of the trees onto clear rocky ground, and the ground should have given them some warning, but neither was looking down. The edge of the cliff seemed to hang out mid-air, Dean and Benny teetering on the crumbling stone, both looking down at the seventy foot drop to the river below.

"That way!" Dean swung the axe to the left as the lamia came out of the trees, splitting up to flank them to the left and right.

"Think we're gonna have to jump, _cher_." Benny looked down again. "You ready?"

"Hell, no!" Dean snapped back, as he watched the lamia slithering over the rocks toward him. He raised the axe, determined to make it pay for his last few minutes dearly.

"We'll go on three."

"Dammit, Benny, no! I don't like heights!"

Benny turned, seeing the other lamia moving up behind him. "Then don't look down! Onetwothree."

He grabbed Dean's shoulders and threw himself out off the cliff, dragging the man with him.

* * *

The river, wide and deep and fast under the cliffside, was like ice, and it felt as if they were under it for a long time. Dean struggled to the surface, dragging in the first deep breath the second his mouth cleared the water. Beside him, he heard Benny's deep gasp as he broke through.

"_Fils de putain_!" The vampire turned in the water, grinning widely at Dean. "I haven't felt this alive in a long time, _cher_!"

Dean looked at him in disbelief, arms out and treading water with the fast-moving current. "Some of us _are_ alive, Benny, and I'd like to stay that way!"

He turned for the bank and swam toward it, the current carrying them downstream and slowing as they hit the next bend. The bank was steep, but sandy, and despite the ache of the long run and the adrenalin surge of the jump, it wasn't difficult to climb.

On the other side, a small grassy plain divided the river from the steep, forested mountainside, copses of trees scattered over it. They walked out into it, the grass reaching their hips, rippling like the sea in the breeze that flowed down the mountain, the entire plain moving and sounding like a satin sheet, shaken from one side.

Dean stopped at the first stand of trees, looking up at the mountain. "About a day from here?"

Benny nodded. The copse was dense, the trees old and thick-trunked. They could hole up for the night, be somewhere around the encampment just before dark. It would give them an idea of what they were facing straight up.

* * *

"Nothing will come after us. Those hags will make sure of that."

Dean turned back from the darkness between the trees, shrugging. "I didn't think I'd make it to thirty, I put my longevity down to not taking chances where I don't have to."

Benny smiled wryly. "Are there many of you – hunters – up there, in the real world?"

He watched the man settle down beside the small fire, lean back against a fallen log, watched the expressions cross his face, seeing him considering how much to tell, what to tell.

"To be honest, I don't know. Not as many as there are monsters, and ghosts and demons," Dean said, rubbing the heel of his hand over his brow. "There were more, years ago. A lot happened in the last few years and a lot of hunters were on the front line."

Benny lifted an eyebrow enquiringly, and Dean sighed. "Lucifer – the devil – rose from Hell. When he got out, he called the Four Horseman, and began the countdown to the Apocalypse, calling the Witnesses, raising the dead … the whole nine yards. A lot of hunters were killed."

The vampire leaned forward, staring at him. "You're not serious."

"Yeah. I am." Dean's mouth twisted slightly. "It was a destiny thing, apparently. Two men were chosen, I never even found out why, to be the vessels of the archangel Michael, and the devil, and …," he hesitated, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. "It was a mess. Civil war in heaven, a lot of crap all the way around."

"And it was stopped?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah. But that didn't solve anything, really. I mean, it solved the problem of getting Lucifer back to Hell, but other shit happened."

"How did you get involved?" Benny looked at him, watching the tension in his face.

"Wrong place at the wrong time, usual shit," Dean said lightly. Telling Benny about him and Sam, and the moment his brother had broken free and bound the devil in his mind, had thrown himself into the cage … that would lead to explanations of how they'd come to be involved before that. And more explanations of their family and the long-planned manipulation of Yellow-Eyes, and none of it was worth going into.

"I never saw a demon, when I was living," Benny mused. "I thought they were just … you know, stories from the Bible, meant to scare people."

"They're real. Every soul in Hell turns into a demon after enough time, enough torture."

Benny was silent for a long moment, and Dean opened an eye fractionally, to look at him. The vampire was watching the flames, his face expressionless.

"Why is it that we don't go to Hell? Monsters. We're evil. We do evil."

"I don't know," Dean said. "Monsters do what they have to do, most of the time. They're not like people who deliberately kill or torture for the pleasure of it."

Benny smiled. "An' how would you know that, _cher_?"

He opened his eyes and looked at the vampire. "A couple of years ago I was turned by a vampire."

He watched Benny's eyes widen. "But you're not a vampire."

"Yeah. My grandfather had a cure, and he and my brother turned me back before I'd fed," Dean said, remembering the pain of it, as if the vamp's blood was acid, riddled through his body and pulled back reluctantly by the potion. "I wanted to feed, when I was in that state, but it wasn't out of any other feeling than hunger."

He looked at Benny. "So maybe monsters aren't as evil as people can be. I don't know."

"You are jus' one surprise after another." The vampire's brows drew together. "This cure, does it work on anyone?"

Dean looked away. "Only on a newly made fledgling that hasn't fed. Once a vampire has fed, that's the end of it."

"Ah."

"Would you take it, if you had the chance?" Dean looked at him curiously.

"Yeah. Of course. If I'd known what you know, I'd never have asked in the first place," Benny shook his head. "To be a hunter instead of a monster?"

"There are quite a few hunters out there who aren't all that different from the monsters they hunt, Benny," Dean said softly. "And hunting, it's not a good life."

Benny's eyes narrowed as he studied him. "You seem happy enough with it?"

Dean's mouth twisted as he looked away. "Hunting – here – that's really different from hunting in real life. Here, it's all straightforward. Kill or be killed. Be faster, be stronger, be better prepared, smarter – it's simple," he said, brow creasing as he tried to find the words for what he meant. "It's _pure_."

"But not up there?"

"Hell, no. In the world …" he chewed on the side of his lip. "In the world, it's hiding and running and lying and stealing and trying to look normal when that's the last thing you are, or could ever be."

"Why do you keep doing it?" The vampire inclined his head slightly. "You sound as if you'd rather stay here."

Dean snorted. "In some ways, maybe I would. Once you're in that life, up there, you can't get out of it. You can't undo what you've done. You can't unsee what you've seen or stop yourself from recognising it when you see it again. You can't … bury the years of – well, you just can't get out."

He looked at the fire, his eyes hooded. "Believe me, I've tried. And it makes it worse. Down here, Benny, I'm human. Up there, I barely was."

* * *

Dean opened his eyes, feeling the shift from complete darkness to the beginnings of light. He looked at the fire, barely glowing embers left.

_Pure._

He thought of the way he'd described this life to the vampire. It was, in a weird _Dances with Wolves_ kind of way. Down here he didn't have to worry about anything or anyone else. He glanced at the still form of the vampire. Except for his ticket out, of course. He was seeing things more acutely, he thought. Or maybe his instincts were just finally getting a free run without him worrying about the consequences.

Either way, he was being stripped down, peeled away, just the bare essentials left.

Who was he, once everything was pared back?

_Have you got that low of an opinion of yourself? Are you that screwed in the head?!_

Someone who wasn't supposed to be alive.

_You don't think you deserve to be saved?_

Someone broken.

_But you were more like him than I will ever be. And I see that now._

Someone who wasn't who they thought they were.

_Like what you are is some bad, awful thing. But you're not._

Someone who didn't know how to be around other people.

_You're a hunter. Not because your dad made you, not because God called you back from hell, but because it is what you are. And you love it. You find your way to it in the dark every single time and you're miserable without it._

Someone who …

He shook his head impatiently. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. The job was the job and that mattered.

The stone axe lay beside his hand and he picked it up, feeling the weight, the improbable imbalance of the thing. It was a tool. A weapon. And so was he.

* * *

"Where's the portal?" Dean asked, looking back to the vampire climbing behind him.

"Anywhere," Benny said, gesturing around them. "Once we've got the stuff, we can open it anywhere."

_That would help_, Dean thought. If Cas was injured, or unable to walk, they didn't want to trek miles to find the damned thing. And there was still the question of transferring Benny's soul. He couldn't imagine how the hell that was going to work. _Possession? Wouldn't that be fun?_

"How am I supposed to carry your soul through it?"

"I don't know," Benny admitted. "It's got to be inside your flesh, somewhere, but I don't really get how that's supposed to happen."

Dean's brows drew together. "Where's the spell?"

"I memorised it," the vampire shrugged. "I didn't have much time and I didn't want to be found there."

"Better hope you got it right, then," Dean said dryly. It didn't sound like anything he'd ever heard of. That was probably true of a lot of things, but usually he knew something of what was involved in most situations he'd come across.

Inside his flesh? Like a … a faint memory of an American Indian legend came to him, out of his past. His father had been chasing a ghost dancer, years and years ago … the chosen girl had had a number of bones embedded in her flesh, each bone had held a spirit. He scowled as he climbed, trying to remember the ritual for the insertion of the bones, and what had happened to the girl when the spirits had reached their destination …

"Was there anything about inserting a bone or a piece of stone into the flesh?" He turned to look at Benny. The vampire shook his head.

"No. The glass was needed to make the cut, to put the soul in. But nothing … solid was used for the transfer."

_Dammit_. He didn't think that the girl had lived once she'd moved the spirits, but at least it would have been a start. He looked up through the tightly packed forest. The few peaks of Purgatory were rugged and rough but not particularly high, somewhat like the ranges surrounding the city of Vancouver, in B.C. The dense vegetation was the only real problem in getting through them. Benny had said the camp was on the other side of the next mountain peak, a broad plateau that they would be able to see once they'd reached the top of this one.

It had taken them ten days to get here. Ten days that the angel had been held. He couldn't think of it. Couldn't think near it right now. He needed to stay focussed. Stay clear. Or he wouldn't be able to do this at all.

Anger wasn't the key. Anger meant being out of control and being out of control meant dying. It wasn't enough to hold it down or bury it either. Strong emotion had a way of breaking free, usually at the worst possible moment. He pulled in a deep breath. No matter what he saw, no matter what happened, he had to be cool. Disconnected. Unaffected.

He'd hunted a lot of years like that, with his father, on his own. Unemotional, clear-headed … for a while there he'd been perfectly capable of it, and perfectly at ease with it. That had changed when his father had disappeared, and it'd gotten worse when he and Sam had teamed up, Sam's rage and his own fear slowly tearing down the walls that he'd spent years building, his emotions leaking through and tainting his clarity until his father's sacrifice had destroyed it all completely.

He couldn't remember a single day after that when he hadn't been struggling against the emotions that had been seething and churning in him; when he hadn't been completely driven by loss and fear and doubt, a wild animal in front of a wildfire, out of control and barely knowing where he was going or what he was doing. And it hadn't mattered how hard he'd tried to hide that, or how deep he'd thought it was buried; it came out, in his nightmares, when Sam was in danger, in the slow poisoning of himself.

_Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you_. He remembered Cas' deep blue eyes staring into his when the angel had told him that. Remembered feeling as if the angel had hit him with a thunderbolt, his automatic reaction of denial, of protest, of disbelief. Because there _had_ to have been a mistake, it couldn't be him, he was broken (_outcast, unworthy, unclean, evil_) and fuck, it just _had_ to be a mistake.

The humourless smile that flickered over his face was gone in an instant, and he didn't realise it had been there at all. He still thought that God had picked the wrong man, although they had, him and Sam, somehow managed to get Lucifer back in the cage.

The last few months were the first he could remember where all that crap, all those emotions, all that fear and doubt had just dropped away, gone and left behind in the straightforward need to stay alive. He slid a sideways look at the vampire, climbing beside him. In some ways, staying here would be preferable to going home. In some ways, he felt healthier here, saner. There was no room for emotion here. No room for worrying about anyone else.

When he got out, when they got out, how different would it be? How different would he be? Would all those feelings stay gone? Or would the mess and chaos of the real world drag them back, make him feel again? Drive him again.

"What are you going to do when you get out, Benny?"

The question came out without thought, and he looked at the vampire, unsure of why he'd asked. He needed to know; sooner or later they had to have this conversation, this conversation about who and what the vamp could hunt – and who he couldn't. But he hadn't thought about asking about it until now.

"Go home, look at the sunset over the river," Benny glanced back at him. "You worried about my dining habits, _cher_?"

"Yeah. I am," Dean said, looking at him steadily.

"I don't need to take the innocent, Dean," Benny said mildly. "I didn't before."

"You didn't mention that."

Benny shrugged, a wry smile lifting one side of his mouth. "You didn't ask."

"I'm asking now," Dean said pointedly.

"Every city has its shadows, _cher_. The places where people prey on people. Even back in the good, old days –" He laughed softly, mockingly, at the idea. "There were alway predators. All I ever needed to do was spill a little rum over my coat and take a walk through them, and they would come to me."

In his imagination, Dean saw it clearly enough. The lone man, stinking of alcohol and maybe weaving a little bit, walking through the darkness. _Easy mark_. And whoever had had the luck to think that would have been dead in minutes.

"You never ran into anyone stronger or faster?"

Benny smiled, a cool smile that sent a small shiver down his back. "No."

It was as good as he could hope for, he thought. The cops wouldn't raise much fuss.

"You kept moving, didn't stay too long in one place?" He didn't know why he was pushing at Benny like this. The vamp had managed to survive on his own. Until he'd run into Elkins. But Elkins was dead, and there weren't many hunters who took on vampire nests any more.

"No. I learned that too many deaths drew interest, and that vampires need to be invisible. From people. From other monsters. From their own kind."

Dean turned then, one brow rising. "I thought that vampires hunted together, lived together in a nest?"

"Perhaps, if one's maker is strong and willing to help," Benny drawled, slowing down as he looked back at Dean. "But mine wasn't. And no one wanted an unknown killer in their nests."

"I know how to survive there, _cher_. How to keep moving and keep invisible. And now, I know more about the other kinds of predators in the night … I might even be able to help you out."

"Don't worry about me, Benny, just keep your head down." Dean shook his head. The last thing he wanted was Sam to find a trail of dead monsters. It was exactly the sort of anomaly his brother would latch onto and follow like a goddamned bloodhound.

"You're hurtin' my feelings," Benny said with a grin. "Thought you said we make a good team." The smile disappeared at the expression on Dean's face.

"Down here, yeah, we do," Dean said shortly. "Up there … it's different. We'll have to go our own separate ways. Get used to being in the world again. Get used to having more choice than just killing everything in sight again."

He wondered how he could explain to the vampire just how fucking different it was all going to be. He'd only been here a short time; Benny had been in this black and white world for fifty years. The adjustments would be … challenging.

"The world's changed a lot since you were up there," he said slowly. "It moves a lot faster now, everything moves faster now. There are like a million choices for everything and there's no time to figure out which is the best one because if you take too long, half of them have been replaced by something else."

Benny stopped, regarding him with a faint hint of derision. "People don't change, Dean. Everything around them might but people don't."

"Yeah. It's just … I don't want to hear about someone taking you down because you got lost up there, you know?"

"Then stick around with me for a while, show me the ropes?"

"I can't." He shook his head. "I've got … family, people I need to see, make sure they're alright. And a job waiting for me."

Benny nodded, his gaze slipping away. "Sure."

Dean looked up the slope. "Let's get going."

He skirted a log and climbed over a rocky outcrop, hearing the vampire behind him. There was a part of him that would have liked nothing better than hunting with the vampire, tracking through the great forests and mountains for the monsters that lived in them, ignoring conventionality and living as rough there as they had here. It was the part of him that thought staying here wasn't such a bad option. But the reality was that he needed to find Sam. And Sam wasn't going to understand Benny. Or the purity of hunting with no other considerations. Or maybe even how much his brother had changed in the last few months.

And the reality was he couldn't know about Benny's doings, once they got back. Couldn't know his whereabouts or how he was feeding or anything that might lead him to believe that it was his responsibility to kill the vampire. If he didn't know any of those things, they were both safe. Safer.

The trees were thinning and the ground was becoming more rocky. He stayed on the edge of the treeline and walked slowly over the flat peak, his gaze scanning the next mountain. He stopped when he saw the plateau.

"There it is." Benny came up beside him.

Even at this distance he could see movement there, huts or shelters or tents of some kind grouped around a larger building. Quite a setup. He longed for a pair of binoculars, or a scope or anything to give him a bit more information before they had to get too close to the place. _Indian scout time_, he thought, Sammy's phrase coming back to him suddenly, the memory of his little brother crawling around in the woods on his stomach bringing a faint grin. At Bobby's they'd played the game a lot, incorporating the skills and lessons the old man had taught them, practising sneaking up on each other for endless hours. He couldn't remember where his kid brother had heard the phrase, maybe an old western, or tv show, but they'd loved it, mud warpaint and bits of shrubs poked into their clothes … one of the few games where size and age hadn't mattered in the slightest, only who was quieter, sneakier.

He caught Benny's questioning glance in the corner of his eye and shrugged. "We'll have to get in close to see what's going on there. Which side do we approach from?"

"We go around that peak, behind the camp. There's a line of trees down a steep ravine. It's not so close that we'll run into their guards, but it's close enough to see what they're doing."

"Okay then, let's rock," Dean said, and turn left along the ridge.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

Dean froze at the sound of the shots, the flat crack of the long-range rifle and over that the distinctive booming fire of a shotgun, both instantly recognisable in the thin, still air. He felt the vampire's hand close around his arm and he sank down to the rough ground with Benny, stretching themselves out flat under the straggling undergrowth. They heard barking and baying, then yelps and cries as the bullets and shells found their targets until the mountainside was silent again.

They waited for a long time for any further sound, rising slowly and cautiously when they heard nothing more. Walking down and across the slope, following the direction the shots had come from, they found the skinwalker pack, bodies sprawled over rocks and fallen tree trunks, lying in the thick needle mat and across the narrow trail. Dean crouched beside a body, looking at the holes, entry and exit. He looked around at the others. Every single body had multiple wounds, heart and lungs and legs and head. He thought the leg shots had been made first.

"What the fuck?" He looked up at the vampire standing beside him.

"I told you, _cher_, this is what they do." Benny shrugged, his gaze moving around the blood-soaked ground.

"Nice." He straightened up and stepped over a body. "Guess we better keep a low profile."

"It would be best," the vampire agreed. He gestured downhill. "They'll follow the trail, we should get lower."

Dean nodded and they slid and slithered down the slope through the fallen needles, hands outstretched to slow their descent when gravity pulled a little harder and the surface steepened.

He could hear the sound of a stream, not big or fast, chuckling over rock and timber just ahead. They were near the bottom of one of the small valleys that ran down from the primary ridge when they heard the scream, both dropping instantly, staring into the forest as the piercing noise rose higher and higher, breaking finally, then starting again.

Benny shook his head vehemently at Dean's looked enquiry, reaching out to grab his arm as he wriggled forward.

"No."

Dean looked at the hand on his arm and back to the vampire. "I need to see."

He watched the vampire's mouth compress to a thin line, seeing the mix of aggravation and fear in the blue eyes that met his.

Benny's grip relaxed and fell away and they crawled through the undergrowth, slowly heading for the noise. They were upslope of the clearing, hidden beneath a rotting log, neither moving as they watched the scene in front of them. Three men stood around a creature, bound somehow to a stump near the centre. Dean couldn't make out what the creature was, it didn't have any recognisable features, the skin slick and moving continuously as the men prodded at it with long, sharp blades.

"C'mon, you can shift faster than that!" One of the men leaned in and thrust the blade into the creature, the body stiffening and the thin scream rising out from the hole in what must have been the head. "I heard you could do it in less than a minute."

_Shifter_, he thought, staring at them. The blades must be silver. He watched as the creature attempted to create a new shape, skin thickening, bones moving under it, the long striated muscles forming curves and planes, then another of the men stepped forward and gripped the creature's shoulder, slowly forcing the silver blade down through one side of the chest, the half-finished form falling away and the created skin dropping off with a moist splat onto the ground beside it. It could barely mewl at the agony now, much of its body mass lying in glistening piles around it.

The third man had been standing by the fire, and Dean saw the blade he held glowing red. His stomach lurched and he turned away as the man stepped away from the fire, holding the molten sword out and driving it into the creature's head, the sizzling hiss drowned out by the sharp shriek of the shifter.

He met Benny's gaze, the vampire's eyes filled with tacit empathy. In that moment, looking into the vampire's sympathetic face, he felt a wrench somewhere inside himself, something snapping, something breaking … he didn't know what it was but his nausea, his unwillingness to face what was happening disappeared abruptly and he turned back to the clearing, not watching the men and the shifter, scanning the area around them for what had to be there.

And they were. Leaning drunkenly against the broad trunk of a dead tree, two rifles and a shotgun, bags of ammunition, a couple of packs and a net bag, bulging and stretched, the contents unrecognisable at this distance. He began to edge backward from the log, seeing Benny's eyes widen in understanding, the vampire's face twisting in silent protest. He flashed him a cold, sharklike grin, easing himself back on his toes and hands, not even a rustle in the bracken fern signalling his progress as he crawled down the hill.

Between the loud exhortations and laughter of the men, and the continuous noise from the shifter, he didn't have to worry so much about silence as he made his way in a shallow semi-circle around the clearing. He was careful not to move the undergrowth. Movement was something most predators caught easily, their peripheral vision designed to track it. Men were no different. When he reached the other side of the broad trunk, he waited for a moment, breathing deeply to loosen the tension in his chest and shoulders and back, to oxygenate his blood for the next sixty seconds of action. He knew precisely where the shotgun lay, a Remington pump action, most likely full reloaded. He would have one shot at this, getting around the tree, getting the gun and taking them down. Just one.

_Do you know how to run a battle? You strike fast and you don't leave any survivors. So no one can go running to tell the boss._

_Oh yeah, bitch, no survivors comin' out of this battle_, he thought, unaware that the cold grin was still stretching out his mouth. _None at all_.

He swung around the trunk and his hand closed on the shotgun without hesitation, the barrel swinging up and his finger finding the trigger in one smooth movement.

The man holding the still-glowing sword went down first, chest pulverised by the suspended buckshot at less than ten feet range; Dean pumped the slide and fired again, the second shell hitting the man behind the shifter, his expression shocked as he fell with half his face missing. The third man ran straight at him, long silver blade swinging at his head as he closed the distance before Dean could get another round into the barrel. He lifted the gun and swung it sharply, knocking the blade away, reversing the barrel as the man stumbled slightly at the change in balance, and jabbing hard at the man's jaw with the butt of the stock, the crack from the solid timber against bone echoing softly in the clearing. He watched the man's eyes roll up as consciousness disappeared, and leaned over, plucking the blade from the man's hand and centring the point over his ribs. Thrusting it down through the ribs, slightly to left of the sternum, he twisted the hilt sharply, seeing blood trickle out of the man's mouth as the chest cavity filled.

He looked around the clearing. The men lay where they'd fallen, graceless in death as they'd been in life, and he noticed that one had a small medallion around his neck. The sight, unremarkable, ordinary even, brought home to him what he'd just done.

_Humans_. And he'd killed them, without thought, without feeling, without the slightest hesitation or remorse. His gaze moved to the shifter, slowly turning into the man who lay behind him, eyes staring around at the dead at its feet.

"Th-th-thank-y-y-y-ou –" It stammered out slowly as the vocal chords formed in its throat.

Dean looked at it, and his fingers tightened around the hilt of the silver blade. He took a long stride to the stump and swung the slim sword one-handed, the shifter's head flying off to one side, its thanks unfinished. He thrust the sword into the creature's chest, feeling the point break through the still-soft bones and into the heart, the body becoming rigid at the entry of the silver.

"I didn't kill them for you," he said, very softly, to the body. Behind him, Benny cleared his throat.

Dean looked over his shoulder at the vampire, then at the equipment dump beside the tree. "We can use some of this stuff."

* * *

In the end, they took one of the rifles and the shotgun, the ammunition for both and dismantled and scattered or buried the rest. The thought of the monsters here having access to the weapons was frightening, but letting the humans find them again would be far worse.

The netting bag had been full of severed heads, a fact for which Dean had only been able to raise a passing curiosity.

"I thought the monsters disappeared when they died, and ended up somewhere else?" he asked Benny, looking over the bag.

"Usually, they do." Benny looked down at the bag, a flicker of distaste crossing his face. "I don't know what these people do, but whatever they take, it doesn't come back."

"The guns?" Dean frowned, reaching out and turning one head to the side, looking at the black hole between the glazed eyes.

"I don't know," Benny admitted. "Possibly. The monsters you killed with your knife may also be gone for good."

Dean straightened up, looking around thoughtfully. Maybe. Left to themselves, the monsters here just tore each other apart, even their crude weapons could only disable, stun, had no hope of killing.

"Well, that's handy to know," he shrugged, slipping the strap of the Winchester over his shoulder and slinging the pack onto his back. "To someone."

He turned away from the bag and headed through the trees, following the narrow trail that the humans had come down, and Benny looked down at the bag once more before following him.

Dean felt as if he was lightly encased in ice, cold and empty and emotionless, his mind clear and as transparent as a pane of glass. On some level, he knew that it wasn't a good thing to feel so utterly disconnected, so completely indifferent, knew that he needed to feel something about what he was doing, or there would be no boundaries at all to his actions, but he didn't want to look at it that closely. He walked fast, a sharp spring in his step, every part of him working smoothly, precisely as it should, ready to do what he wanted. He could feel his concentration, narrowed and acute, and he felt easy, contradictorily relaxed in spite of the hair-trigger alertness. Or perhaps because of it.

He could feel the vampire following behind him, following him wherever he led, without questioning him, without arguing … Sam had never done that. Never just followed without having a fight about it first. Not with their father. Not with him. Sam had wanted to have input into everything, had believed – the thought was scraping at him, at the smooth, icy wall that surrounded him and he thrust it away impatiently. Sam wasn't here.

No one was here. No one who would care what he did or how he did it. The thought was both chilling and liberating.

His hand was curled loosely around the stock of the rifle over his shoulder, keeping it from bouncing against his back as he increased his pace again, striding out along the trail. The vampire didn't protest, just lengthened his stride and followed.

The scope alone was worth it, Dean thought, and if he could pick them off from a distance, the odds of actually succeeding improved dramatically. He hadn't been able to see their numbers, from the top of the peak. But the number of shelters, the size of the place spoke to more than a couple of dozen. And all of them apparently expert hunters. He wondered incuriously how well they would fare with no firepower, just their wits and strength to keep them alive out in monster-land.

_How had they killed the leviathan?_ That really was a good question. He hadn't seen them here but Benny had said that they were big, car-sized, creatures that were something of a cross between a tarantula – giant, economy-sized, naturally – and a velociraptor. _Intelligent, fast moving, voracious. Even with guns, you'd have to be good, you'd have to be very good_.

He put the thought aside. He'd know more when they could see the place. Getting in was going to be the trick. He had a couple of ideas, both of which depended on what he saw of the people in there, and whatever kind of chain of command they had, and on the vampire's agreement. Neither were particularly safe for Benny. He could, he thought, leave the vampire out of it altogether, walk in on his own. That would be safer, probably for both of them.

_Wait and see_, he counselled himself softly. The best plan always became obvious once the full details were known.

The three he'd killed had been more like mercs than soldiers – or hunters – he thought. Undisciplined. Careless of who heard or saw them. Leaving their weapons out of reach. Were they all like that? Or the majority? If so, it would make it easier for him. Easier to create a diversion, to get in, get Cas and get out again. He looked down, a rueful smile lifting one side of his mouth. It wouldn't be _that_ easy because it never was. Someone had planned this; someone was looking to get something out of it. The mercs might be the hired guns, but he thought they were probably all disposable as well. Just muscle.

* * *

They kept their distance from the plateau, traversing the flank of the mountain and climbing the other side of the peak. The forest was dense and dark, the trees tall, old, a mixture of spruce and pine, hemlock and fir and cedar, the trunks straight and clean, and the undergrowth stunted and struggling in the dim light. Beside the steep rocky fall of a small stream, they could get close enough to the upper canopy to jump from rock to tree, and they settled themselves along the thick branches, Dean adjusting the scope as he found the camp.

The details leapt at him through the high magnification lens. The larger building was a simple log hut, a single room by the looks of it, whole log and caulked with mud and earth. Surrounding it on three sides, much simpler lean-tos had been thatched with thick twiggy branches, to keep the occasional storm and rain showers out of the interiors. In between and surrounding the perimeter, fires burned, the flames almost invisible in the flat grey light. _No walls, no ditches_, he thought. _Not afraid of whatever might come in the hours of darkness_.

He moved the rifle incrementally across the camp, and stopped a moment later, a smile tugging at his mouth. _Yeah, well that would explain the lack of fortification_. A low embankment had been dug, and along the top were a number of guns. Ugly, graceless guns with big bores and very high mag scopes, box magazines protruding from underneath of the barrel, the size of them indicating the round calibre they took. He recognised a Steyr single shot, a McMillan semi and a Barrett semi among them. With high explosive, incendiary, armour-piercing rounds, they could take out anything at a range of fifteen to sixteen hundred yards, well out of the compound. And, he considered thoughtfully, if the solid slug was replaced by a boron compound, they would light up the levis and take them down without the slightest problem. He nodded to himself, satisfied with the answer to one question at least.

He adjusted the angle of the barrel, the scope lifting slowly. Above the gun battery, a small rise came into his view. On the top of it, a timber frame had been built, pegged together and braced to the front and back. Dean's brows drew together as he adjusted the focus again, bringing the figure lashed to the frame into shocking detail.

_Castiel._

The angel's feet were on a small ledge built into the frame two feet from the ground. His arms were stretched out in a cruciform, lashed tightly to the cross-bar of the frame. His head hung, resting against his shoulder, the trenchcoat ragged and torn, bleached out in some places, stained in others.

_Twelve days._

The smooth ice wall threatened to crack and he pulled back from the sight, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, forcing the growing emotion back and down.

_I don't feel anything. This is just a guy, just a guy we have to get out of there, I don't know him, I don't feel anything. He's just the job. Just the job. I don't know him. I don't feel anything. I don't feel anything. I don't feel._

From the branch below, Benny looked up, seeing sweat beading on the man's forehead, seeing the taut features and white-knuckled fists.

"You found him?"

_I don't feel. I don't feel. Just the job. I don't feel._

He dragged in a deep breath, opening his eyes and relaxing his hands.

"Yeah. I found him," he said, his voice thick and hard. He looked down at the vampire. "We've got enough time till dusk."

"Enough time for what?"

"Enough time for you to learn how this thing works. Get up here," Dean said tightly, moving away from the rifle. Benny looked at him and then the gun, rolling onto his feet.

"I can shoot, Dean, but this … you need to use it."

Dean shook his head. "You're going to learn, bro. It's not easy, but nothing is, right?"

* * *

He showed Benny how to adjust the scope, how to adjust the sight. He showed him the small cluster of foliage, high on the tree halfway between their position and the camp that he'd chosen as a wind flag. Showed him how to pull back slowly on the trigger, smooth and slow, so that no jerk could fuck up his aim. Showed him how to load the box magazine that held five rounds, and how to work the rotary bolt. They couldn't shoot – Benny would have to adjust everything, including himself, once Dean gave the signal. But he could feel the point where the trigger released, could see the movement of that little cluster of needles, and knew how much breeze it took to move them, and how they bent this way and that depending on the direction.

He looked at Dean worriedly when they felt the light beginning to dim. "What if I don't hit any of them?"

"Then I'll leave your useless ass here when I go," Dean grinned at him, the smile not reaching his eyes. "You'll be okay. The first shot's easy. I figure that hut to the right of the building is their primary ammo dump. You keep pumping shots into that until it goes up. By that time, you should have some sort of feel for the gun, for the distance."

"We could wait until dark; I could go with you –"

"No." Dean turned away, looking at the rocky outcropping a few feet away. "I'm getting him now. We're getting out of here now."

"That may not –" Benny tried again.

"It'll work," Dean said softly. "This time, it'll work out."

He jumped from the branch to the rock, catching hold of the top and half-sliding down the rough face to the stream's edge. Benny looked down as he started to walk away.

* * *

Dean froze against the thick bole of the tree, shedding thought and awareness, emptying himself completely. He wasn't in direct view of the two perimeter guards, but was visible enough, if he caught their attention.

_Claude Montrissier had been in country with his father, in 1972, and had returned home whole on the outside, but not so much on the inside. He had lived in Louisiana, and had eked out a living carving wood into fantastical sculptures, selling them in Lafayette from time to time. John Winchester had gone to him a few years after his life had been destroyed by a demon, looking for a connection between the demon's Louisiana's visits and the deaths that had followed them, and an old man who'd lived nearby. Claude had known all about it, and they'd taken the witch down together. Years later, he'd taken Dean down to meet the Marine-turned-hunter, and Dean had spent three months with Claude, learning about voodoo and hoodoo, about the Louisiana practices and the Haitian counterparts, about Baron Samedi and raising the dead. And he'd learned about hiding himself in plain sight._

"_You got to let everything go, man, let it dissolve and disappear," Claude had said to him, the dark eyes sparkling with a humour that wasn't always friendly. "Be the tree. Be the earth. Be the grass and the insects and the air and the leaves. Not you. Not yourself. Just everything around you."_

_He'd thought that was a load of crap, but he'd tried to follow the old man's instructions, blocking out the thoughts that had repeatedly popped into his head, blocking out the sharp sting of the insects that were feeding on him in the warm purple dusk, blocking out the sudden fear as he heard the deep breathing of Claude's dog, Muerte, and the clink of the dog's chain being released. _

_Muerte was an Anatolian/Rottweiler cross of uncertain bloodlines. He stood hip high to a man at the shoulder, and was slightly over two foot across the chest. His misshapen head was almost all jaws, huge, blunt, powerful jaws with big, sharp teeth filling them. Claude had introduced him to the dog when he'd first arrived, telling him to stay clear of it. Muerte had no sense of play, no sense of humour, just a hyper-strong territorial instinct and a perpetual hunger for fresh meat._

_He shunted the sudden anger at the man aside and froze, clearing his head, clearing everything as he heard the dog's heavy steps moving toward him through the almost-darkness. From across the yard, he heard Claude's low chuckle._

"_Now we see, eh, Dean? If you have learned the lesson."_

_He'd ignored the jibe and let everything go, feeling himself become transparent and then not there at all. And the dog had gone past him, paying him no more attention than he had any other tree in the yard._

_It had been the hardest fifteen minutes of his life, but it had taught him that it was possible. Possible to disappear, to not-exist, to draw the attention of none._

The guards walked past, their eyes sliding over him without recognition, without pause, and they continued on down the trail, scanning the forest, for any movement, any hint of intruders.

His mouth lifted slightly on one side as he watched them move away, disappearing around the next bend in the trail. Then he stepped away from the tree and continued toward the camp.

* * *

He walked up the well-marked path to the plateau openly, not a hundred percent sure it was the best course of action, that he wouldn't be shot on sight. His instincts told him that coming here, an unarmed human, was going to be the easiest way to get in, the easiest way to get what he needed. The back of his neck was prickling slightly, as he saw two men turn toward him, their guns rising and pointing at him, their pace increasing as they hurried over, but he thought that was just normal caution, alone and in the midst of enemies.

"Who the hell are you?" The first man stared at him, gaze dropping and slowly rising again as he took in the filthy and torn clothing, lingering slightly on the axe in his hand.

"Dean Winchester," he said, smiling slightly. "Human. Glad to see you guys."

The second man's eyes narrowed. "How'd you get past the perimeter guards?"

Dean shrugged, turning his head to look at him. "Didn't see anyone else."

The men exchanged a slightly worried look, then the first jerked his head toward the camp. "Get moving, you need to see the Colonel."

_Colonel?_ He looked at the guns held by the men, both M16s, standard issue assault rifles for the US army, in the late sixties, early seventies. _What the fuck?_

They flanked him as he walked into the camp, one to his right, and the other behind him, weapons still pointed at him, although their grips on the guns had relaxed. He looked around curiously.

The compound had been laid out in a standard military pattern, in zones of protection, with the log building and two other robust shelters at the centre. Most of those moving around the camp were men, wearing varying mixes of civilian and military clothing, all carrying guns of one sort or another, holstered at their hips, or flat against their ribs, or slung over a shoulder or chest. None of the guns were more recent than the seventies, he thought, and all seemed to be standard military issue for that time.

They stopped in front of the hut that stood to the left of the log building, and Dean felt the barrel of the M16 press into his back as the man behind him stepped close, and the other knocked on the door.

The door opened and a man walked out, pale blue eyes raking over the men in front of him, then shifting abruptly to the man beside him.

"Simpson," he barked the name out crisply enough but it didn't hide the west Texan drawl.

"Sir, this man walked just walked in camp," Simpson straightened slightly, glancing at Dean. "Said he didn't encounter the perimeter guards."

Dean looked back at the older man's face impassively. Six foot one, maybe two inches, he held himself with a strict military bearing. _Career soldier, been in the game for decades_, he decided. He was in uniform, the khaki almost faded out to white but clean, the patches and tears mended carefully. The face was square, a cleft chin, smooth from regular shaving, the eyes like gimlets, examining him with nothing to show in the expression of what he was thinking.

_Tough old bird._

"What's your name, son?" The Colonel's voice was deep, the drawl a little more pronounced.

"Dean Winchester."

"Winchester, like the gun?"

"Like the gun," Dean agreed readily. "What is this place?"

He felt the barrel jab into his back and half-turned. The Colonel cut through the barely formed intention sharply.

"Just for now, son, we'll ask the questions. How'd you come to be here?"

Dean turned back to him. "I have no idea. One minute I was hunting a bear with my brother, in the Black Hills reserve, the next I was in the middle of a forest and fighting for my life."

The Colonel stared at him, then nodded slowly. "Happens sometimes, if you get too close to something that's dying."

He glanced at Simpson for a moment, then back to Dean. "Well, son, welcome to Purgatory."

Dean frowned at him. "What?"

The barrel jabbed him in the back again. "Mind your manners, boy."

"Take it easy, Franklin, it's a big shock coming here," the Colonel said easily, stepping out away from the hut. "You must be fairly good, Winchester, to still be alive."

Dean looked at him, turning a little to face him. "I've seen … what is this place?"

"The last resting place for the unnatural and the undead. Saw a few already, haven't you?" The man nodded again. "Kind of shocking, but you get used to it."

He glanced at Franklin. "Get the testing gear, Franklin. We'll just check out Mr Winchester and then you can return to your posts."

Dean watched Franklin walk to the log building. "Testing?"

"We need to make sure you're all human, son." He turned to look at him. "A lot of things look human here, but aren't. We test everyone, doesn't hurt much and it sets everyone's mind at ease."

Silver, iron, salt, Dean thought, keeping his face expressionless as Franklin returned with a roll of cloth in one hand.

"Sir." He slung the rifle over his shoulder and unrolled the cloth, spreading it out across his forearm.

"Hold out your arm, son, and it'll be over in a minute." The Colonel picked up a slender silver knife and waited. Dean pushed up his sleeve and held his arm out, wincing a little at the sting of the blade slicing into his skin. He saw the Colonel take note of his reaction.

"Red and warm. Good." The Colonel put the knife back onto the roll and lifted a bottle. Dean read the handwritten label. Borax. He winced a little more as the liquid spilled over the wound.

"Antiseptic as well as a good indication of certain kinds of things living here." He lifted a second knife, this one longer, the metal darker. "Last one, hold still."

_The knife was iron_, Dean thought, watching the Colonel adjust his grip on the hilt. He sensed movement behind him, and started to turn when Simpson grabbed his arms, pinning them tightly behind him, and the Colonel pushed the blade into his side slowly, angled upwards under his ribs.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He looked down at the knife, face twisting as the pain hit him, the cold blade deep inside him.

"Some creatures need iron to kill them." The man pulled the knife out and wiped it clean. "You've been here a while, Winchester. That's not fatal. You'll be fine in the morning."

Dean felt his knees buckling slightly and Simpson held him up. _Shock_, he thought, _let it wash through, don't fight it_. The sonofabitch was right; he would be fine in the morning. He didn't feel fine right fucking now.

"Simpson, getting a dressing on that, make sure he doesn't bleed out. He's human," the Colonel said, smiling slightly at Dean, "and we can always use another human."

"Come on," Simpson said brusquely, releasing him. "Get you patched up."

"Bring him back here." The Colonel looked at Dean appraisingly. "We'll take the tour, and I'll fill you in on what we're doing."

Repressing the impulse to smash his fist into the older man's face, Dean managed a nod and turned away, staggering a little as the hole in his side bit deeply, sending rods of pain down to his knees.

_Psychos. Fucking psycho_. It didn't help to know that in the same position he might have done the same thing. There was so much that was completely off about the place, about the man, that he didn't know where to start.

"He's a tough guy, the Colonel, but he knows what he's doing," Simpson said to him when they walked into the building. "Siddown. He's kept us alive all this time."

Dean closed his eyes. "How long have you been here?"

He felt the cold touch of alcohol on his skin, acid-etching into the wound. Simpson discarded the swabs and tore open a sterilised dressing, taping it firmly over the cut.

"Who knows? All our watches stopped when we came through, there's no way of telling the seasons or anything, nothing like that changes." He shrugged, turning back to the table to put the first aid kit away. "I kept count for a while, you know, the days, but it seemed pointless and I stopped."

Dean stood up, the dressing pulling a little on his skin as he moved. "Do you remember the year you came here?"

"Oh yeah, sure. 1978." Simpson gestured to the door. "Colonel's waiting for you, get going."

_1978. Thirty four years_. Dean walked out of the building, Simpson behind him. "How'd you come to be a part of this?" He gestured around them.

"Volunteered," Simpson said, moving up beside him. "Just finished my third tour in 'Nam and I didn't want to go back. This project came up and they asked for volunteers and here I am."

"This is a military project?" Dean asked, trying to keep the shock off his face.

"Yeah, classified up the wazoo, but once you're here, it's not like you can tell anyone, right?" Simpson grinned at him. "Colonel'll explain it. We've had maybe three or four guys like you, most of them come in shell-shocked as hell, and barely alive. Like the Hotel California, man, you check in any time you like, but you can't ever leave."

Dean checked the frown forming at that. Someone here knew how to leave. Benny had found the spell in one of their books.

"Simpson, return to your post. Tell Morris and Sweeney to find whoever's on perimeter today, and bring them in. A week in the hole might help them to remember how to do their jobs."

Simpson's face paled a little as he nodded and swung away.

"The hole?" Dean watched the man striding away, and turned back to the Colonel.

"Our equivalent of the stockade," the Colonel said, gesturing for him to move. "Some of the men here aren't as disciplined as mine, had to take what I could get at the time, so we needed a reminder for them."

"Uh huh." Dean walked beside the older man. "So what is this?"

"Project Acheron." He turned to look at Dean. "Acheron was the river in –"

"Greek myth that Charon ferried the dead across to Hades, yeah, I know the story," Dean said impatiently.

"Do you now?" the Colonel said thoughtfully and Dean wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "What you've seen here, what you've fought, are the souls of the monsters that roam topside, on Earth."

"Monsters?"

The Colonel smiled thinly. "Sounds fantastic, but it's true. Government's been trying to keep a lid on it for a long time now, since Hoover first took over the Bureau."

They came to the embankment holding the tank guns. "The first beasts here were Leviathan, according to the Bible. God built Purgatory to hold them, keep them from escaping and destroying the Earth." He waved a hand at the guns. "These do the trick too. Nasty things, Leviathan. Almost impossible to kill. Almost."

Dean looked at the bottom of the embankment, a deep ditch, filled with huge, dark bodies, in various stages of decomposition. The bones were yellow, oily looking in the flat grey light. Bone of the first beast. _No problem_.

"And you're here to what? Kill all of these?" He looked up the hill, to the frame on which the angel was suspended.

"No. We're actually here to find a doorway to another universe," the Colonel said mildly, following his gaze up. "Funding for the space program was getting reduced, usual story, Congress with its head up its ass, and the population wasn't getting smaller by any means. We're tasked with finding a place where we can expand, explore new frontiers."

Dean felt his brows rising. "Another universe? Any luck with that?"

The Colonel laughed. "Oh hell, son, this is just base camp. We've found three and sent through our boys to check 'em out." He turned to look at Dean. "How long have you been here?"

"I'm not sure, maybe ten months? A year?" He looked back at Castiel. "What'd he do?"

"Only a year?" The Colonel's eyes narrowed as he studied him. "What year was it when you got sucked down here?"

"2012."

The information shocked him, Dean could see it in the man's eyes, despite the tight control he had over his face and body. Had he really not known of how long he'd been down here, doing his duty for his country and being left behind, forgotten about or buried?

The Colonel turned his head slowly, looking up at the frame on the top of the small hill. "He's … uh … bait, really. For the Leviathan. They keep coming up here trying to get him. We saw them hunting him a while ago. Saves us the trouble of hunting for them, when they all come here."

"He's human?"

"God, no," the Colonel said, looking away. "Not sure what he is, to be frank, but he's not human."

Dean turned away from the hill and the angel. "So, all the men here are US soldiers?"

The Colonel shook his head. "No. Couldn't get more'n a dozen volunteers. We've got a fair percentage of hired help here."

"Hired?" Dean slid a sideways look at him. "Not much to spend your cash on around here."

The older man's gaze sharpened on him. "No. Army's paying into their accounts, they'll have plenty when we get the order to go home."

Dean nodded, looked across at the line of shelters. In the shade of one, two women were sitting, bent over something in their laps. He frowned. "You brought wives along on this tour?"

"No," the Colonel said abruptly. "More like camp followers, the women here."

Dean lifted a brow at him. "Stumbled through from Earth?"

The man's expression hardened. "Told you a lot of monsters here look human. The men have needs. And some monsters can be … kept from changing, kept under control."

Dean looked back at the women as they walked closer to the shelters. Both looked up and he saw the collars, iron or silver or some other kind of metal. He hazarded a guess that they were sirens, although he couldn't imagine how the collars would bind them.

As if following his thoughts, the Colonel said, "They know they'll die if they try anything. They're sirens, can change themselves to whatever is most desirable to a man."

_Charming_. Dean wondered if the men themselves knew the truth about the monsters they were screwing. Maybe. Maybe not. From what he'd seen none of them would've cared.

They stopped in front of the log building and Dean glanced at the hut to the right. The Colonel saw the direction of the look and turned toward it, gesturing. "Our stores. We brought a lot of stuff that it turned out we didn't need. But we've got plenty of ordnance here, enough to keep hunting the monsters and putting them down."

He pushed the door open and Dean looked at the inside of the single room, stacked to the ceiling with boxes and crates and bag of weapons, ammunition, grenades, mines and more esoteric weaponry.

"Quite a selection," he said, the side of his mouth lifting as he looked at the Colonel.

The other man smiled back. "Weren't sure what we needed, so we brought everything."

Dean laughed softly. It would go up like a fucking nuclear bomb when Benny hit it, he thought. Give him more than enough time to get Cas, get one of the big guns and the bone and get the hell out of Dodge.

"So, you've seen our setup," the Colonel said, closing the door. "You going to throw in with us?"

Dean looked around the compound. "As opposed to running and fighting for my life out there, sure. Of course."

"Good!" The Colonel clapped a hand on his shoulder, and Dean clenched his teeth against the desire to pull his knife and plunge into the older man's heart. A bit more time, just a bit, and he'd do it, gladly.

They both turned at the noise coming from the path off the plateau, shouting and a deep guttural snarling.

"What's going on?" Dean narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the detail of the party that was walking up toward them.

"Sent out a group this morning, some of our boys didn't come home from a hunt yesterday and we found them, all shot up and dead." The Colonel watched the group as well. "I'd say that they found the murdering monster that did it. Good timing too, men have been hankering for something different for a while, they can get rid of that dissatisfaction now."

Dean watched as the group got closer, something bound and struggling in their midst. He couldn't see what they were half-carrying, half-dragging through the dirt of the compound, the creature covered in blood and dirt. The back of his neck prickled insistently.

He followed the Colonel as he walked toward them, the group stopping when they saw their leader, kicking at the figure lying on the ground, bound up in heavy iron chain from shoulders to knees.

"Got him, sir. He had the guns and the ammo." The soldier stood straight, his faded uniform rent with claw marks, and reddened with blood.

"What is it?"

"Vampire, sir. Took all of us to get him. We lost Tyree and Hutchinson, sir."

"Well, string him up," the Colonel said, lip curling slightly in distaste. "No wagering on how long he lasts, Mitch. We're still soldiers, not barbarians."

"No, sir."

Dean stared down at the vampire, unrecognisable as he lay in the dirt. Then Benny lifted his head and the blue eyes met his as the soldiers dragged him to the back of the camp.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

_Don't feel. Don't think. Don't feel. Don't think_. Dean watched Benny being hauled over the ground, heard the vampire's snarls and hisses as the surface changed from dirt to rock, and the men around him laughed.

_Keep it together, keep it cool_, he told himself, turning away and looking back at the man beside him.

"What are they going to do with h – it?" His voice was steady, maybe a little higher than usual, but steady.

"Men need to let off steam when their own are murdered. They usually make them last a couple of days," the Colonel said disinterestedly. "Son, you take yourself down to those women and get them to fix up your clothes, get a bath and … whatever else you might be inclined for … you stink like a week-old jock. I'll see you back here at nightfall."

He turned, heading for the hut and disappearing inside. Dean stood there for a moment, then swung around, walking slowly back the way they'd come. He still needed a diversion and maybe the sirens would be able to provide one.

* * *

They looked up as he approached, and the air around them seemed to shimmer for a second, thickening until he could barely see them, as if he were looking at them through old, imperfect glass, then returning to normal. The one sitting on the left had changed from a small brunette to a voluptuous blonde, her clothes straining against full curves as she stood up slowly. The one on the right had changed as well, her face was now oval and smooth-skinned, green eyes smiling at him, long red hair tumbling over creamy shoulders to her waist.

"Cut it out, I want to talk," he said uncomfortably, looking into the shelter behind them. "Anyone likely to interrupt us?"

"Not with the curtain down," the blonde said, glancing at her companion. "You want to talk?"

"Get in there," Dean said tersely, looking back over his shoulder at the compound. No one seemed to be paying him any attention. The women walked into the shelter ahead of him, and he followed, pulling the lashing that held the curtain free and letting it drop behind him. When he turned back to them, they were standing by the crudely made bed.

"How are they holding you?" He looked from one to the other. They glanced at each other, and the redhead lifted her chin slightly, pointing to the collar.

"It's lead. There's a binding spell on it," she said, her expression suspicious. "Why?"

"How many men can you two take down, if you're free?" He ignored the question. He wasn't sure, exactly, of where they'd taken Benny, but he could hear distant shouting. He needed to have everything ready before he could move to get the vampire, and the timing was going to be a bitch.

Again the women exchanged a look. "If we're free, we could take about eight or nine."

"Is that all?" He didn't bother to hide his disappointment. The blonde smiled coldly at him.

"Each."

"Oh." He nodded, that would cover a lot of the men in camp. When the store blew, it would bring them back to camp and if these two were waiting, in the dark … "Good."

"Why?" The redhead folded her arms over her chest and stood hipshot, waiting. "What are you?"

"Oh, I'm human, sweetheart." He smiled at her, the smile not reaching his eyes. "And I'm bringing this place down, but I can't do it all on my lonesome, I need someone – something – to keep attention off me until I'm ready."

"You're bringing it down?" The blonde's tone was derisive. "You know how many have tried that? It might not be much of a life here, but these humans are loyal to that old man."

"Trust me, ladies, I can do it." There was no cockiness in his voice at all, just a sure certainty, and the sirens looked at each other for a long moment.

The redhead looked back at him. "The Colonel send you down to us?"

He nodded, a little nonplussed at the change in subject. "Yeah, why?"

"He likes everyone to be clean and neat," she said dryly, gesturing at his clothes. "So unless you're planning on raising Hades right this minute, you better let us get on with keeping up the semblance of doing what you've been told to do."

He looked down, thinking about it. He still needed the blood of a repentant soul. He didn't think he was going to find one here. He looked up at them. "Yeah, okay. Listen, I need info about this place … and I need it now."

"Well, you've come to the right place," the blonde said with a shrug. "We've been stuck here with these monsters for a long time. What do you need to know?"

She turned away, going to an old-fashioned copper tub in the corner of the room. A pipe jutted out over it, and Dean watched her lift it, water running into the tub as she lowered it again. She'd left her hand in the stream and he felt his brows lift as steam began to waft up from the water filling the tub.

"Didn't know you could do that."

The blonde's mouth twisted into a sour smile. "You humans have no idea of everything we're capable of."

Dean pulled off his jacket, then his shirt, handing them to the redhead. "The guy tied up to the frame on the hill –" he gestured vaguely in that direction, and the women nodded. "– what've they done to him?"

"The angel? Nothing yet," the redhead took the rest of his clothes and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling thread and needles from the pockets of her dress, looking down at the clothing as she started to stitch up the tears. "He pulls the black monsters; they can't seem to resist him."

"You know he's an angel?" Dean asked, surprised.

"Of course. He shines." The blonde gestured to him, lifting the pipe again. The tub was full of steaming water.

"You didn't tell them?"

"No one asked us," the redhead said dryly.

"So, uh, he's okay? He hasn't been – hurt?" He lowered himself into the hot water cautiously, and leaned back when it covered him, eyes closing briefly in bliss.

"Well," the blonde hedged, looking over at the redhead, "they did the usual tests on him."

The redhead nodded. "And just about fell on their asses when they cut him and the light came out."

"Since then, though no. They've left him alone."

"Good." He looked up at the blonde. "You got any soap?"

She shook her head at him. "Lie back."

* * *

Dean walked down the line of shelters, not fast enough to seem in a hurry, not slowly enough to seem as if he was looking for something, feeling the light bump of the pack on his back. The sirens had filled him in on pretty much everything he'd needed to know, the only gap in their knowledge were the whereabouts of the books Benny'd seen.

The Colonel's hut seemed to be the most likely place. He put the thought aside for a moment. They'd arrived with Army tents but the canvas had deteriorated over the years and the shelters were primitive wattle and daub structures, thin-walled and barely adequate against the little weather Purgatory offered. The men rebuilt them when they collapsed, which was fairly frequently, the redhead had told him.

He stopped outside the last shelter in the row, and looked around casually. Most of the men in the camp were elsewhere, and he blocked out the thought of where. Letting off steam, the Colonel had said, and he shut that thought down as well. He glanced up at the featureless not-sky. The day was drawing to a close, and he wanted to start his show just before darkness fell.

Ahead of him, hidden in a pile of boulders and loose rock, was the hole. The sirens had told him that one of the soldiers had been down there for a long time now, for refusing to obey an order. No one had returned yet with the perimeter guards, and this would be his only chance to talk to the dude. He looked around again and sauntered across to the rocks, dropping below them once he'd reached the higher ones. The hole was, in fact, a hole.

To one side, a chain had been heaped in a pile. Dean lifted his pack off his shoulder, setting it on the ground beside him, and lifted the end carefully, looking at it. A chain ladder. He started to lower the end into the hole. When it touched the bottom, he felt the tremble of a touch on the chain, transmitted to his hands through the links.

"Time to come out," he called down quietly.

The chain rattled against the rock edge and then tautened as weight went onto it from below. The man climbed slowly, and lifted his face to the light when he was a few yards from the top. Dean saw a drawn face, aesthetically thin, the shock of black hair a vivid contrast to the paleness of the skin.

"Come on, haven't got all day," he said gruffly. The man continued to climb and as he got closer, Dean could see the shaking in his hands and arms. He reached down and gripped the man's wrist as it lifted to the lip of the hole, locking around it and pulling him the rest of the way.

"Got a name?"

"Corporal Hudson, sir," Hudson said softly, not noticing that Dean wasn't wearing a uniform.

Dean hauled up the chain ladder as quickly as he could, leaving it in a pile. He picked up his pack and slid the strap over his shoulder. "Let's find someplace to talk, Hudson."

"Sir?"

The shelter was in disrepair, some way from the others. Hudson said it was his. Dean looked around the almost bare room and gestured to the simple canvas and timber frame cot, dropping his pack beside the door.

"You disobeyed an order, Hudson?"

"Yes, sir." Hudson sank down on one end of the cot.

"Don't call me sir. I'm not one of this party," he said, sitting at the other end of the cot.

"Then why'd you pull me out, s –" Hudson looked at him.

"Someone told me you could be of use to me," Dean told him bluntly.

"Of use?"

"Why'd you disobey an order, corporal?"

Hudson looked away, his gaze dropping to the dirt floor. "I didn't want to do it anymore."

"Do what?"

"Maim. Torture," he gestured toward the centre of the compound. "I couldn't – I felt like I was losing myself, what was happening here, what they were doing."

"I thought that was more like recreation?" Dean frowned at him.

"No. It used to be standard orders. The Colonel wanted every man to be ready, for the next phase," Hudson looked over at him. "Tartarus got a man back through, said that the place they'd found was already inhabited. The Colonel started us on capture/torture duties, said we had to be ready to face a new enemy." He shook his head. "Billy came back through … changed, somehow. He wasn't the same man who'd gone into the doorway. The Colonel told me we had to prepare for genocide. Most of us … before he … most of us wouldn't. We couldn't. Wasn't why we joined up, and fighting in … that … had already been too much like that, killing civilians …"

Hudson's voice trailed off and Dean looked at him. "What happened, Hudson?"

"I don't want to …" Hudson looked at him and away again, his eyes shimmering in the dim light of the shelter. "I don't – I don't want to – I can't – talk about that."

Dean nodded quickly, looking away. "Alright."

He looked at the man's bowed head, the tremble in his hands, even clasped together on his lap. The redhead had been right about the guy. Didn't mean he couldn't at least try.

"You know, you were under orders, Hudson," he said, hearing his brother's voice in his head. _You were under duress, it wasn't a freely given choice, Dean. It's not on you_. "It's not your fault."

Hudson shook his head, his chest hitching slightly as he fought for breath.

"I can't stop the images from coming into my head, sir," he got out eventually. "I can't stop it from going on and on."

Dean felt his gut twist inside of him. For a second, he wasn't sure who he was, himself or the man sitting next to him. He clamped down on the disorientation, shutting his eyes tightly as his face screwed up. _I am Dean Winchester. Son of John Winchester. I am a hunter. I am Dean Winchester. I am a hunter. I am a hunter. I am a hunter_.

The feelings passed, spiralling down into his own personal darkness again, and he looked at Hudson, licking his lips. It would be a mercy to the man next to him, he told himself. An escape from a prison that he couldn't escape from otherwise. And he knew that prison, knew it intimately, the prison of his own mind, his own thoughts.

"Hudson."

The man looked back at him miserably. "You gonna put me back in the hole, sir?"

He shook his head.

"I can help you," he told him, his voice dropping. "Help you to end the pain."

He didn't know what the man was seeing in his face, in his eyes, as they looked at each other. He wasn't sure of what he was feeling, what might be showing. The silence between them stretched out and he began to wonder if he'd made a mistake, if the man sitting at the other end of the cot wanted life more than peace. Then the pain disappeared from the corporal's face, his expression smoothing out, and his eyes softened.

"You mean you can kill me, don't you?"

"That's all I can do. I can't make it stop any other way," Dean agreed.

_I can't teach you how to bury it, deep enough that it won't keep rising in your dreams. Can't teach you how to feel normal, or sane, or as if that torn and bloody hole in the middle of you isn't there. Can't teach you how to deal_. He nodded.

"Do you want, uh, forgiveness? If there's a bible in this shithole, I can give you last rites."

Hudson nodded, leaning forward and reaching for the small cupboard beside the bed. "I have a bible. I always keep one with me."

He pulled out the heavy book, handing it to Dean. The cover was torn and almost loose from its binding, the pages showing mould and wrinkled from the humidity. Dean opened it slowly, flipping to the back. They were there, the type font tiny and cramped, but still readable.

Hudson smiled at him suddenly, and he caught a glimpse of a younger man, a boy all fired up with ideas of changing the world. "Do you know what it is to be truly forgiven? To be free? I didn't want to kill myself. Didn't want to spend an eternity in … well, you know." He looked down at the ground significantly, and Dean pulled in a deep breath. He knew.

He stood up, picking up his pack and opening it. The two gallon jug had been from the stores hut. He'd seen it when he'd gone in to set up the charges, and had tucked it into the pack along with weapons, ammunition and a small first aid kit.

"How are you –" Hudson looked at the jug curiously as Dean walked back to him.

"It'll be painless. You won't feel much, like going to sleep," Dean reassured him, dragging the small three-legged stool beside the bed and putting the jug at his feet. "I need your blood, Hudson. I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart. I need the blood of a repentant man." He waited. It was a risk to tell him, but he couldn't let him think that he was something other than what he was. "You can change your mind."

"I don't want to. I want to be forgiven. I want peace … and I didn't think you were a saint."

Dean repressed the urge to smile. "Lie down, put your head over the edge, here."

The corporal stretched out along the cot, his neck just over the edge, and closed his eyes. Dean looked at him for a long moment, then picked up the bible. He had no oil, let alone sanctified oil and he skipped over that part, pulling his knife from the sheath on his belt.

"I call upon the great archangel Raphael, Master of Air, to open the way for this to be done. Let the fire of the Holy Spirit now descend that this being might be awakened to the world beyond and the life of Earth, and infused with the power of the Holy Spirit."

Well, he thought, Raphael was dead, but he guessed that another angel had been appointed in his place to carry out this kind of thing. They'd really fucked up things in Heaven, him and Sam and Cas, over the last few years.

The knife point was sharp and it slid easily through the skin of Hudson's neck, piercing the carotid artery. The blood sprayed out, and Dean shifted the neck of the jug quickly, catching most of it, blinking against the droplets that had spattered over his face. _Forgot about the damned blood pressure_.

"O Lord, Jesus Christ, most merciful, Lord of Earth, we ask that you receive this child into your arms, that he might pass in safety from this crisis, as thou has told us with infinite compassion –"

"Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you …"

The blood flow slowed and he lowered the jug slightly, reading the words automatically, barely taking them in. Hudson's face was empty and slack, his skin white, the bones and blood vessels visible under it, his hands slightly curled on the cot beside him.

Dean watched the pulse at the base of the man's throat slowing as the jug filled. He put the jug down, and leaned forward.

"And thus do I commend thee into the arms of our Lord of Earth, our Lord, Jesus Christ, preserver of all mercy and reality, and the Father Creator. We give him glory as we give you into his arms in everlasting peace, to be prepared to return into the denser reality of God the Father Creator of all. Amen."

The small movement had stopped and the blood was dripping slowly into the neck of the jug. Dean remained still, watching the man's face. _Was he at peace now? Would he go into God's arms and find peace?_ He didn't know. Nothing in Heaven had been what he'd thought it was supposed to be, not that he'd had much to do with religion other than the rituals that only the bible had held. The angels had been a fucking disappointment.

He wasn't a priest. At one time, he'd been a Servant of God. He hoped that would be enough to send this man's soul where it needed to go. He stood up, lifting the jug and screwing the lid on tightly, wiping his knife clean on the inside lining of his jacket.

_Blood of a repentant soul. Bone of the First beast_. Just the amber and he was set.

He'd grabbed the bone as soon as he'd left the siren's hut. And Cas had seen him.

"_Dean!"_

_He'd looked up, shoving the bone through his belt, wiping his hands on his jeans. The angel had been looking down at him, hope on his face. Dean had shaken his head, glancing back up the path to the main part of the compound._

"_Cas, keep it down," he'd called quietly. He wasn't sure if Cas had been unable to hear him, or if the angel hadn't been quite all there._

"_Don't leave me here!" Castiel's eyes had widened as he watched the man climb out of the ditch, turn away._

"_Cas, I'm coming back for you, but you have to be quiet for a bit longer." He'd looked up, seen the panic and sworn softly. "Cas, I am coming back for you. Please, man, just shut up for now."_

"_Dean, don't … don't walk away. Don't leave me!"_

But he had. Fast up the hill, away from the angel's pleading. He couldn't risk freeing Cas right now. He needed to get everything else first.

He pushed the memory aside and stopped in the shadow of the shelter closest to the Colonel's hut. He hadn't been able to find the amber in the store hut. Along with the books, and maybe some of the more esoteric ingredients the spells required, he was willing to bet he'd find it in the man's private quarters. The Colonel had come off as rational, most of the time, but it had still felt like talking to a reptile, not a human, the blue gaze losing focus occasionally, looking inward or just switching off. It had made him uneasy at the time. After hearing Hudson's account of what had gone on here, he thought that the Army leader had probably scattered his marbles irretrievably around the time he'd ordered the executions of half his men.

_Not your problem_, he thought, pulling himself back to the job. It wouldn't be long until dark. He'd laid enough fuse through the munitions to give him about fifteen minutes lead time. It was time to go visit with the Colonel.

* * *

He set the pack down at the corner of the hut, and knocked on the door. The Colonel opened it, his eyes narrowing suddenly.

"Well, you smell better at least. What happened?" He gestured to Dean's face. Dean remembered the arterial spray belatedly and swore at himself for not cleaning it off.

"Went to see what they were doing to the vampire, must've gotten too close," he said, trying to keep his tone casual. He wiped at the dried blood.

"Well, in the future, I prefer my men to keep clean, Winchester. Doesn't do morale any good to be reminded of this cesspit any more than we need to be."

Dean bit back the response that rose immediately and nodded noncommittally. "You wanted to see me?"

"Come in," the Colonel said, stepping to one side of the door. Dean edged past, looking at the tallow candles that lit up the space in a surreal glow of golden light. One wall held shelving, filled with books, small boxes and jars and bags stacked neatly alongside them. On the other side of the single room, a military cot stood next to the wall, a carefully built maple desk next to it. On the wall above the bed, a framed photograph of a woman looked into the room, her eyes a soft grey, her hair a warm dark brown.

The Colonel followed his gaze. "My wife. She passed the year before I took over the project."

"Sorry to hear that," Dean murmured. _Everyone had a trigger_, he thought. _Everyone had a reason, good, bad or mediocre, for doing what they did_.

"We're going to open another portal tomorrow night," the Colonel said abruptly, gesturing to the map that covered the wall of the hut by the doorframe. "We'll need a couple of things so I'm sending you out with a small party to get them."

"What kind of things?"

"Monster bits and pieces, mostly." He turned back to Dean. "Every portal has a specific key, like a flavour, almost. This one leads to a universe where we've already got a team, and the key is the werewolves. I need their claws, their hearts, their fur and teeth."

"Where'd you learn about this stuff, anyway?" Dean glanced over his shoulder at the books. The Colonel followed the look with a cool smile.

"From those, yes," he said, turning to look at them. "Hitler collected most of them. We bagged them when we got into his bunker." He shrugged. "I say we, but it was a little before my time."

Dean raised a disbelievingly brow at the statement. "Hitler?"

The Colonel looked at him, amusement creasing his face. "The man was a nut. Forever looking for an edge." He looked back at the books, his face becoming hard. "Of course, he had something here."

He glanced at Dean, and his expression changed, becoming sly, knowing. "You know that vamp, that the men are torturing, don't you?"

The question came out of the blue and Dean stared at him. "No. Never seen him."

The older man smiled. "You'll have to work a bit harder to fool me, son. I saw him look at you. He knew you."

He shrugged. "Maybe he'd been tracking me."

"No." The Colonel crossed to the desk, leaning over it. "No, whatever you are, kid, wherever you're from, you're not like anyone else I've met. And I'm a good judge of people." He turned around, and Dean looked into the barrel of the S&W revolver unhappily.

"I told you the truth. I don't know how I got here," he said, lifting his hands slightly. What had triggered the old man's suspicions? He sighed inwardly. Could have been any one of a dozen things, he thought resignedly. After months here, he'd been out of practice with lying anyway.

"Yeah, that's what you said." The gun barrel flicked to one side, the gesture unmistakable. Dean walked slowly to the cot, watching the man as he backed away, out of reach. "Now, why don't I believe you?"

"Why did you order the execution of more than half the enlisted men sent to serve here with you?"

He hadn't planned on asking that, hadn't been thinking of it at all, but it came out of him and hit the man holding the gun like a sledgehammer.

The Colonel's face sagged and the barrel of the revolver dipped, the man's eyes vaguing out again. Dean was on his feet, his knife in his hand, as the blue eyes slowly regained their focus and the finger on the trigger jerked it back. The boom of the gun was enormous in the small space, and Dean hesitated fractionally, uncertain if he'd been hit or not. He couldn't feel anything and he closed the distance between them, the edge of his hand, with the weighted knife hilt in it, striking the Colonel's nose and shattering it, the thud of the gun falling to the floor overlaid by the sound of his elbow driving into the man's sternum, a thin, high whistle as the air was expelled from his lungs.

Dean grabbed a handful of the Colonel's shirt as the soldier sagged against him, wheezing painfully, blood pouring from his nose.

"I'll tell you one thing, Colonel. You're as crazy as they come, and I've seen a lot of crazy," he said softly into the man's face. "What I _am_ gonna do is make sure that this fucking project is wiped off the damned map, starting with you."

He thrust the knife into the man's chest, just under the lowest ribs, angling it upward and seeing the Colonel's eyes widen suddenly as it penetrated the chambers of his heart. He twisted it and let go, stepping back as the man dropped in front of him. _Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely_. The saying or quotation or line ran through his mind as he looked down at the body on the floor. He had no idea where he'd heard it, but he knew he'd remember this, this moment, if he heard it again.

_Philosophise later_, he thought, stepping over the Colonel, and reaching for the first pile of boxes on the shelves. _You're running out of time_. He opened box after box, throwing them over his shoulder as he searched through them. It had to be there, somewhere. Outside, the light was fading from the sky, and he needed to get going, needed to set off his diversions and get Benny and Cas and get out.

The amber was there, in a soft cloth bag in between two books. He drew it out of the bag, looking at the entombed insect inside of it, and pushed it back into the bag. It would melt at two hundred degrees, if he remembered that bit correctly. Any fire would do that without difficulty. He looked at the titles of the books. Half were in languages he didn't know. Wherever the spell was for Benny's soul ride, he didn't have time to find it now.

* * *

He was halfway up the shallow incline behind the camp, following the sounds of shouts and laughter when the store hut went up. The warm, expanding air hit him in the back, knocking him to the ground as it passed over him and he twisted around, looking back down the hill, seeing the inferno where the hut used to be, flames licking and devouring the log building and the Colonel's hut as well, every shelter in the compound knocked flat to the ground with the force of the blast wave.

_Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?_ He snorted at the memory of the scene, shaking his head slightly. _Live and learn, right?_

He rolled onto his feet, crouching in the darkness as the shouting grew louder, and the men who'd been up the hill with the vampire began to run down the hillside to the camp. The sirens would be out, the collars that had bound them lying behind their hut, the lead easy enough to cut through. They'd be prowling through the light and shadow of the fires, ready to take them on. He hoped he'd get enough time to get the vampire away before whoever was next in command got their heads wrapped around what had happened.

When the last of them had passed by him, he straightened, climbing quickly over the rough ground. He stopped when he heard the voices ahead of him.

"The question is … does a vampire actually bleed out, or do they heal up again if they drink fresh blood?"

A laugh from another. "Cut your wrist, Ray, and find out!"

"Come on, you guys, we should get down to the camp, Colonel'll have us in the hole if he finds out we stayed up here when everyone was on deck."

"Mixing up your armed forces there a bit, Clay. Where the hell you say you was from?"

A low, defeated snarl echoed off the rocky walls and Dean felt his chest tighten.

"I don't think he's going to last much longer."

"He'll be fine in the morning, like they all are so long as we don't take their heads off with iron." The man sniffed. "Ready to go through it all again."

Dean straightened up abruptly, the Colonel's revolver in his hand as he came around the shelf of rock into the naturally formed amphitheatre, lit brightly by the fires around the edges. He saw the vampire and the world – _this world, every world_ – simply vanished.

The first bullet went into the knee of the man standing closest, the next into the thigh of the man standing next to the strung-up vampire. He turned unhurriedly and put two shots into the other man's legs, watching the three of them drop to the ground, screaming in pain.

He looked at Benny. The vampire was held above the ground, the chain still around his chest and arms, suspended upside down by his ankles. Dean couldn't see a single part of him that wasn't cut or torn apart, his face unrecognisable, broken and bleeding and swollen, the ground under him a deep red, churned by the liquid and the men's bootprints into a thick, viscous quagmire.

He wasn't aware of feeling or of thought. He wasn't _there_, in the most stringent sense of the word. Some part of him still lived in the brain that controlled the nerves and muscles, the tendons and skeleton, but that part was a machine, observing, calculating, emotionless and unmoved and indifferent to the things that lay on the ground, to the creature that hung from the wall.

"You just don't get deep enough, up here, boys," he said absently, looking down at them, flicking the safety on and tucking the gun at the small of his back, through the belt. He pulled the knife from its sheath and walked to the man lying to the right of the vampire. The two shots had gone through the legs just above the knees, shattering the femurs just where the bone started to narrow above the knee joint. From the expression on the man's face, it was agonising.

_Don't know what agony is, not yet_, he thought, kneeling in the dirt beside him. He drove the tip of the blade into the abdomen, in the cradle of the pelvis and dragged it upward, the keen edge slicing through skin and muscle and organs in a straight line up the centre of the body, pulling it out at the peak of the arch of the ribs, just before the cartilage that held the two sides together.

He didn't hear the man's desperate shriek, or feel the blood that flowed over the hilt of the knife and his hand, his head tilted slightly as he made a second incision perpendicular to the first, from one side of the chest to the other, excising the flesh back from the cavity in an asymmetrical four pointed flower.

In another place, another time, he'd have had the tools to do a proper job on the ribs and the skin, but not here. He rolled back onto his feet and stood up, moving to the man on the other side of the vampire, unaware of Benny's eyes, barely visible in the swollen flesh, following him.

Blood was pumping out fast from the second man's leg wound, the bullet had punched a hole through the large femoral artery. _He would bleed out before much longer_, Dean thought, the idea of this one escaping so easily mildly vexatious.

Dropping to one knee, he gripped the man's arm, tearing the sleeve from the faded Army jacket in a vicious yank. He wrapped the sleeve around the leg, above the wound and pulled it tight, knotting it when he saw the flow slow to a trickle.

"T-t-thank you," the man looked down the length of his body, feeling the pain disappear gradually under a spreading numbness. Dean didn't hear him, moving to his head. He gripped the man's hair and slid the tip of the knife under the skin at the point of the jaw, feeling the slight catches as the blade edge, no longer quite as keen, sliced the skin from the underlying muscle. The man's hands flashed up to grip his hand and he stopped for a moment, staring at them. He released the hair and drove the knife through the clusters of nerves under each shoulder, a single thrust to either side. The man's arms dropped to the ground, and Dean frowned slightly, returning the blade to the delicate task of removing the face.

"D-D-D-De-ee-ee-n," Benny's voice croaked behind him, barely louder than an indrawn breath. He heard it, distantly, over the bubbling noises that were coming out of the man under his knife, but he still had work to do and he didn't like to leave things unfinished. The demon didn't like it. He'd spent a lot of time making sure he did what he could to keep the demon happy.

It wasn't as neat a job as he could have done with the right tools, but he left the face draped over the scalp and shrugged. It would have to do.

"One more, Benny, then I'll get you down," he said softly, walking to the last man. The bullet, a .357 magnum, had destroyed the patella completely and the man was lying in a growing pool of blood, eyes tightly shut, hyperventilating with shock. Dean stood over him, his eyes dark, his face thoughtful as he considered what was needed here.

_Blood eagle_. That had always been a favourite.

Kneeling beside the man, he inserted the blade above the solar plexus, angling it to make a shallow incision up the breastbone. He couldn't hear anything. Had somehow learned to shut down hearing when he had work to do like this, it was too distracting. He could see the chest vibrating, watched the Adam's apple working furiously in the throat. Screaming, most likely. The thought drifted in and out of his mind as he carefully excoriated the thin layer of muscle back from the bones.

No cutters. He looked at the bones and pulled the stone axe from his belt. The single blow split the rib cage and the screaming stopped abruptly. He pulled the two sides apart and lifted the lungs out, setting them on the spread-apart ribs like wings. With them out of the way, he could see the heart, beating fast and arrhythmically.

_Probably die before anything else could find him up here, but he couldn't have everything_. He stood up, slipping the axe handle back through his belt and wiping the blood from the knife on the outside of his leg.

He turned to the vampire, walking toward him and looking up at the chains that held him suspended. His senses were returning, very slowly. He could hear the rasp of Benny's breath through his battered throat and between the torn lips. The machine was still there, but another part came back, looking around cautiously.

In Hell, that part had hidden for much of the time, deep inside, eyes closed tight and disconnected from what his body did, what the machine did. _I carved you into a new animal_, the demon had told him, but it hadn't been true. The machine had done the job, the rest of him had just … withdrawn. Into a room without doors. A place between. He'd felt everything. Seen everything. But he'd emerged … still intact, the connections between pain and pleasure had not been permanently laid down, in his mind, in his nervous system. He could still tell the difference between the two.

"Let's get you down, bro," he said softly, gripping the free end of the chain and pulling it out of the notch that held it in place.

He lowered Benny slowly, taking his weight on one shoulder as he released the chain.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

The chain around the vampire's chest and torso had protected him to a certain extent. The rest of Benny's body was a pulped and bleeding mess, cuts, deep and shallow, criss-crossing each other, contusion over contusion, standing out lividly against the dead white pallor of his skin. Dean looked over the injuries, his face like stone.

"I've got everything, Benny, everything we need," he told the vampire quietly. "We gotta get out of here, now."

Benny's head rolled back and he tried to nod, his throat working as he tried to speak.

"Don't." Dean looked at his mouth, split and swollen, the broken teeth and gaps. "I'm going to stand up, think you can walk – a bit?"

He looked at the vampire's legs. They were bleeding freely, slashed to ribbons but straight, he couldn't see that the bones had been broken. Benny lifted his hand and Dean took it, pulling him onto his feet. The vampire staggered, and Dean lifted his arm, mouth compressing tightly as he saw the bone end piercing through the muscle in the vampire's forearm. He shifted his grip, so that the forearm could hang without weight, and Benny groaned, the sound low and distorted.

_He would be okay in the morning_, Dean thought, catching himself as he realised that they wouldn't be here in the morning. He would be a lot better when he was free of this place, he amended silently to himself.

The climb down the hill was slow and agonising, Benny stumbling and shaking, his breath hissing out between the broken jaw bones, blood soaking into Dean's side as he tried to take more of the vampire's weight. The camp was burning fiercely, lighting up the night, and he could see the Colonel's men running against the flames, most of them without a useful purpose, the chain of command broken.

He kept to the foot of the rise, staying in darkness as much as possible, and headed for the gun embankment.

Flickering frozen images of the men he'd (_tortured_) killed blinked in and out in his head. He didn't regret what he'd done (_what it had felt like_) for one second; he hadn't felt that rage (_that murderous black rage_) since … not for a long time. He'd crossed a boundary, he knew, but this was Purgatory and boundaries were crossed all the time, what happened here wasn't the same thing as what happened in the real world.

He'd seen the vampire (_and ice had filled his veins_) and reacted. There wasn't anything more to it than that (_and memory had risen, memories of what to do and how to do it_).

He would get Cas and they would get out, and what had happened here (_what he'd done_) would stay here, with the men (_he'd condemned to death_) who managed to survive this night (_some of them might've been good men_), all psychos anyway, and he didn't regret it for a second, firing their weapons and destroying their chances of returning home (_no one ever goes home_) and no one would know what happened once they got back home (_Benny wouldn't talk_) and things could finally go back to fucking normal (_nothing would ever be normal again_).

Struggling with the vampire's weight, Dean tried to push the oddly doubled thoughts out of his head. He wasn't any good at lying to himself, a part and parcel of his inability to lie to his family. But he didn't have the time or the inclination to get that mess straight now; he just needed to finish the job, to get them out of here. He would deal (_bury_) with everything once that was done.

He shook his head and looked around. They were close to the hill now. The sirens had told him of another way out, under the gun embankment, a cave in the hillside that led down through the mountain to the valley below. He lifted Benny slightly, seeing one of the vampire's feet twisted and dragging as he headed past the big guns.

Behind him, he could hear the roaring of the fires, a beacon to everything in this part of monster-land that all was not well at the human camp. He could hear the shouting and the screams of the men, the fire of small arms and the louder cracks of the rifles. The sirens were effective killers, turning man against man, and he had the feeling not many would still be alive in the morning. They would murder each other and flesh and blood would only heal if death had not come.

He saw the inky darkness move at the edge of his peripheral vision and stopped, dropping Benny as his eyes searched frantically for a confirmation of that movement. Another part of the darkness shifted and there was a gleam in the black, reflecting in the firelight behind him.

_Oh … shit_.

"Stay here," he told the vampire. "Keep your head down."

He ran for the guns, a few yards ahead and to his left, hearing heavy thumps on the ground to the right, pacing him, tracking him. The nearest gun was the Steyr. _Single shot, bolt action_, he told himself, jumping to the top of the bank, hands reaching out for the smooth stock, fingers finding the safety and trigger and bolt automatically as he dropped to his knees behind it. A hard edge pressed against one knee and he hoped like hell it was a box of ammunition.

The blackness moved again and strode out, the creature's massive, unlikely frame outlined along one edge by the fires. Dean looked through the scope and fired, instantly deafened by the noise, his ears ringing loudly when he slid his finger from the trigger.

He'd hit the leviathan in the chest area, he thought, the armour-piercing round going in deep as it exploded on contact, and suddenly the creature was on fire, from the inside, coruscating like a demon inside a host, the elongated head thrown back on the end of the long, sinuous neck, mouth open wide and light showing the rows of pointed teeth.

Working the bolt, another round loading into the chamber as the spent shell was ejected, he caught another movement in the corner of his eye and he shifted his position over the soft ground. The gun swung around on its pivot, smooth as silk, and he half-closed his eyes, the barrel stopping, his finger muscles drawing back on the trigger slowly. _Slow is fast. Slow is fast_. Caleb's training held after all the years that had gone by. The second levi lit up and Dean saw movement at the edge of the plateau as the others turned away, dropping below the edge.

Scrambling down the bank again, Dean ran to Benny. The leviathan might hang back a bit longer, but not forever. The vampire lay where he left him, and Dean's face hardened as he took in the fresh blood spilled over the ground beside him. He crouched, sliding his arms through the straps of the pack, and dragging Benny over his shoulder, his feet shifting slightly on the ground as he balanced the vampire's weight. Then he straightened up, and started walking again, expecting to feel the weight and the feel of Benny's body disappear at any moment. _How much could he endure, how much blood could he lose before his vampire's soul died?_

The shouting had gotten closer and that was to be expected, he guessed, the firing of the Steyr like a fucking neon sign to those in the camp that someone was down at this end. _Couldn't be helped_.

He lost a lot of the ambient light from the fires as he followed the curve of the hill, slowing down further to avoid pitching head first over an unseen rock or crevice or hole. The cave was just ahead, just a few more yards. He could leave Benny there and get Cas, and then the angel could help him with the vampire. Just a few more yards and they were home free. He could do it.

He couldn't see the low rock ledge that was in front of the cave, and tripped, stumbling forward and landing on both knees with a crack. Pain shot up along his legs, through his groin and into his back and he grit his teeth, letting his breath out through them in a soft whistle. Getting back up, he could see the cave mouth, darker against the darkness of the night. _Thank fucking god_. He walked in cautiously and knelt again, lowering the vampire to the floor with a long exhale of relief. Fingers pressed against the artery in Benny's neck, feeling the slow beat there. A hand on the vampire's chest registered the slight rise and fall. He was dying but not dead. Not yet. Dean slid the pack off his back and set it beside the vampire, getting wearily to his feet again and heading out of the cave, and back along the ditch.

_Castiel_.

The angel would know. Not here maybe, where things were confusing as hell, but once they returned, Cas would know. Would see it in him. What he'd done. Did it matter? He didn't think so. The potential had always been there, nothing had been erased, nothing had healed in the long years. And it wouldn't be so different, seeing the disillusionment in the angel's eyes, the disappointment, than it had ever been seeing the same things in his brother's. He could live with it.

Starting up the bank at a crouch, he dropped at the top when he saw the flaming torches, the flames bouncing jerkily as the men carrying them ran and climbed the hill above him. _Goddammit_. He rolled down the other side and started to climb, scrabbling over the tussocks and loose rock, the pain in his knees forgotten, his weariness and the aches in his body shed. The revolver was in his hand, the safety off and he looked down at it in surprise, not remembering pulling it. He was almost half-way up the slope when the leviathan returned, and he stopped and turned, hearing a short shriek and a deeper growling from behind him.

"Just kill the sonofabitch, he's the one drawing 'em here!"

"How the fuck are we supposed to do that?"

"Cut him into pieces, that works with most of them."

Dean's head snapped around at the shouts from above. He launched himself up the slope, his head pounding as he saw the figures crowded around the timber frame, the torches dropped to the ground lighting them up. Slowing, the revolver's barrel rose as he aimed it at the back of one of the men up there and pulled the trigger. The gun's big retort was drowned out by the noise that filled the plateau, of fire and death and black beasts hunting.

His target jerked forward and dropped, its companion staring down at the body for a moment, then turning to look down the slope. In the patchwork darkness of the hillside, Dean could see the man's eyes searching for him, and he raised the gun again, drawing a bead along the sight in line with the round silhouette of the man's head and squeezing. From this distance he couldn't see the hole, but he saw the man fly backward, knocked from his feet by the impact. The others ran to the back of the frame, out of his range and out of his sight, and he started to run, clawing at the ground to move faster.

White light spilled down the incline toward him and his head snapped up. The light came from the angel, growing as the men behind him cut into him.

_No_, the thought burst into his mind, fracturing his walls, destroying his cold perspective. How could they have an angel's sword down here? Or was Cas more vulnerable to ordinary weapons down here, cut off from Heaven by the veils in between?

He didn't hear the pounding behind him as he ran up toward the angel, or the stentorian breathing. The impact lifted him and sent him flying out to the right, the revolver spinning out of his hand into the dark, his ribs flexing sickeningly as he landed on his side, the rock under him driving the breath from his lungs, a slow warmth trickling down his back and soaking into his shirt. Grey mists were closing in around him, and he fought them back, rolling onto his stomach and forcing himself onto one knee.

On the peak of the hill, there were screams, the light from the burning brands extinguished one by one until only the angel's white light remained. Dean could see shapes, harlequinning that light, big, black shapes that moved almost like birds, flattened reptilian skulls outlined then vanishing as more and more beasts surrounding the angel.

_The guns, get back to the guns_. The thought galvanised him, and he tried to rise and turn, pain thrumming down his back and through his chest, his legs wobbling suddenly and he was falling. He tucked his head into his arms as he rolled back down the hill, each new impact with the rocky ground compounding the pain. The long fall stopped a few feet short of the bank holding the guns and he lay there for a second, winded and enclosed in a fiery shroud of agony.

"Dean!" The scream came from the top of the hill. Dean opened his eyes, twisting around and looking up. A burst of argent light escaped from between the shapes that surrounded the angel, then it was gone, and he saw the shapes converge on the frame, their darkness smothering that light, killing it, wiping it out.

_No._

_No, it was going to work, dammit, Cas, it was going to work, we were getting out, all of us, together. _No!

The howling whine of a bullet hitting the rock next to him pulled his attention back to where he was and he looked across the hill, seeing a group of men heading for him.

Just for him or for the guns on the bank, he wondered? Didn't matter either way. He rolled to his feet, pain blossoming across every part of his body again, and turned, running down to the bank, and rolling over the top, ignoring as best as he could the stabs and aches and throbbing of his injuries.

In the darkness of the ditch he crouched, doubled over and moving slowly away from the hill. He climbed out once he was past the guns, a last glance up the hill showing nothing but darkness on the peak.

_Face it. Accept it_, he thought bleakly. _Cas was dead_.

The levis had gotten past and had taken him. _You waited too long. You should have gotten him out earlier, before the levis got involved, when it was still light. You could have stashed him somewhere, most of the men had been out of the camp, it would have been okay, or even if it hadn't, you could have made it work, somehow. How could you have left him there? _

Somewhere, deep inside, there was a protest. But it was faint and he pushed it aside. Sometimes you didn't have to see the body to know that there had been no hope at all. And he deserved the vitriol of his thoughts. He'd risked Cas' life needlessly and it had been the angel who paid for it.

* * *

When he got back to the cave and crawled over the rock ledge that marked the entrance, he thought for a moment he'd lost Benny as well, the vampire lying hidden behind the curve of the wall, invisible from the entrance. He saw a foot, canted to one side, behind that curve and sat back on his heels, eyes closing with relief.

His panic returned when he crawled up to the vampire and pulled his lighter from his pocket, the wavering flame lighting Benny's face. Swelling had distorted the vampire's features and Beny's breathing was harsh and laboured, his heart beat slow and irregular. Pushing one eyelid up slightly, Dean saw that the blue irises were almost obscured by the huge black pupil, the whites seemed grey.

"Benny?" he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "C'mon, man, open your eyes."

There was no response, and he clamped down on the impulse to shake the fucking fang, to make sure he wasn't drifting off, leaving, giving up, dying.

Kneeling beside the vampire, the lighter in one hand, he looked down at the misshapen face. He'd thought he'd had it all under control. Thought that the plan would work out. Now, he wasn't sure why. When had things ever just worked out, without him losing someone? Thinking back, he couldn't recall a single occasion.

Ellen had called him a leader (_yeah, led them to their deaths_). He'd left Adam to Michael after promising him it would be okay (_his attention taken up with Sam, how could he forgotten about his other brother?_). Called Uriel and Cas down on Anna. Led the demons straight to Pamela. Brought death to Ash (_if we hadn't asked him to look for the signs, would he be alive now?_). And Rufus. And Bobby –

_Feeling sorry for yourself gettin' the job done, son?_ Bobby's voice was strident in his head, cutting through the seeping guilt. _You want to save this monster, you know what you have to do_. (_Benny was afraid. Afraid that the blood would wake a hunger he couldn't control_) _So? Get on with it. Might as well die saving something as die from sorrow sittin' on yer ass_.

He couldn't lose another one.

His expression hardened as he looked around the low-ceilinged hole, lifting his hand and the lighter's small pool of light expanding. To one side there were a few piles of dried vegetation, blown in, maybe. He reached for them and made an untidy heap to one side of the vampire, deeper inside the cave. The grasses and leaves and small branches caught immediately. Looking back at Benny, Dean pulled out his knife, cutting a small incision without hesitation along the vein that ran from wrist to elbow. His blood welled out, slowly at first, then faster, and he moved his arm, turning it over so that it dripped into Benny's open mouth.

Under the flickering and vagrant light of the small flames, he watched the vampire's face obsessively, eyes moving repeatedly over the features, looking for any sign that his blood was doing anything at all.

The change, when it came, was sudden and shocking. Benny's eyes flew open and stared into his, their colour rich and vivid and the pupils tightly contracted despite the low level of light. His mouth pulled back from his teeth and Dean saw the fangs descend over the broken human teeth, through torn gums. He gripped his friend's wrists, his stomach roiling as he felt the broken bone shift under his fingers, pushing him back down hard against the dirt, lowering his head until he was only a few inches from the vampire and he could feel Benny's exhales hard and fast against the bare skin of his throat.

"Listen to me, Benny, listen," he said, staring into the vampire's too-bright eyes. "You're going to die without blood, you understand? You'll die here without my blood to help."

Benny blinked once, his gaze remaining fixed.

"So … hey … listen to me! I need you to focus, you get it?" he said, raising his voice a little as the vampire's gaze began to slip from his. "I need you to take control of the hunger and hold it away from me, so I can save you, you getting' this, Benny? You hearin' me?"

Benny stared up at him, and for a moment, he thought that the vampire wasn't, that he couldn't hear him past the thunder of the blood rushing through his veins, over the booming of his heart beating in his chest. He leaned over Benny's chest, holding him down with his weight, knowing it was only the vampire's current state of weakness that let him do it.

"Benny, hear me, man," he said, staring into the blue eyes, willing the vampire to remember, willing him to have the strength to not just attack. "C'mon, man. Fight it. Please. You need this."

The vampire blinked again, his pupils expanding a little, and Dean held his breath, watching the tiny changes in the muscles of the vampire's face as the snarl lying just below the surface smoothed away, seeing the fangs begin to slowly retract back into the gums.

"Hold onto it, Benny," he said softly. "You need a lot more."

He let go of Benny's wrists, raising his arm cautiously over his mouth again. The vampire looked up at him for a long moment, the neon colour fading out of his irises, his breathing slowing, steadying. Then he lifted his hands and closed his fingers gently around Dean's forearm, dragging the cut down to his mouth, his lips sealing around it. He closed his eyes and Dean felt the powerful suction of the vampire's hunger, felt his blood pulled from him, watched Benny's throat as he swallowed steadily.

The vamp could drain him as thoroughly this way as he could tearing holes in him, he thought dazedly, feeling a little light-headed as more of his blood flowed from his veins down his friend's gullet. As from the localised pain, he had a feeling he wasn't going to know how much was too much, wasn't going to feel the last couple of pints go.

Looking down, he could see the bruising and swelling receding, more rapidly the longer Benny fed. He watched, with a slightly delirious astonishment, as the broken end of the tibia in the vampire's forearm slid back below the skin, the skin closing up behind it. He looked up and saw the cave wall swaying nauseatingly in front of him, the flicker of light and shadow from the dying fire adding to his disorientation. He couldn't keep his balance, he realised slowly.

Benny's eyes opened, and he pushed Dean's arm away from him, sitting up as the man swayed helplessly from side to side.

"Hey, _cher_, take it easy," he murmured, wrapping an arm around Dean's shoulders to hold him upright. He didn't know how much he'd taken, only knew that the pain had almost gone, he could see again, hear again and … he owed his life to the human by his side.

"Feel dizzy," Dean said petulantly, pushing at the vampire's strong grip. "Get off me, man, people are gonna think somethin's goin' on."

The vampire smiled a little. "Somethin' _is_ goin' on, _frère de sang_. You let me take too much of your blood, brother."

He looked around the dark cave, his eyes picking out the details easily. "Where's the angel, Dean?"

Dean looked away, anguish contorting his features, then gone. "He's dead."

"I'm sorry, _cher_."

"Happens to everyone, right?" Dean asked, twisting away from the vampire and falling onto his hands, his head hanging down. "Boom, one day, everybody's gone."

"Dean."

"I'm fine," He coughed weakly, leaning against the wall of the cave. "Fine."

"Let's get out of here."

"Don't think I can stand up, Benny," he admitted reluctantly, squinting at the vampire as the last of the small fire's kindling was consumed. "Everything's rolling around. I got a hangover and I didn't even have anything to drink."

"You got me here, I'll get you out," Benny said quietly. He picked up the pack and hooked the straps over his shoulders.

"There's a way through there," Dean told him, trying to remember all the things he was supposed to have done, waving vaguely toward the back of the cave. "The chicks told me about it."

"Chicks?"

"I'm tired, Benny," Dean closed his eyes, resting his head on his arms. "I'm so goddamned tired."

"I know," the vampire said, looking down at him. Would it matter if they rested a little first? Getting out was so close he could almost taste it, real air, real everything. "Not far to go, Dean, we'll rest when we get there, eh?"

He leaned over and gripped Dean's wrist, pulling him up. They would rest, let Purgatory's power restore them, but not here. Not so close to that place, which would be overrun with monsters before light. He turned and looked around the walls, seeing the narrow slit in the far corner easily.

* * *

Dean woke in darkness, opening and closing his eyes several times before he realised that he _was_ in darkness, not gone blind or just dreaming of waking. He felt tired, and sore, but otherwise alright.

"Benny?"

"Yeah, I'm here, brother," Benny's voice came out of the darkness to his right and he rolled over, lifting a hand in the air, feeling the strength of the vampire's fingers around his own.

"Guess the blood worked then," he said lightly, releasing the vampire's hand.

"Sure did."

"And you didn't lose it," Dean pressed, glad that for the moment he couldn't see Benny's expression.

He heard the smile in the gravelly voice.

"No. How're you doing?"

"I've definitely been better," he said, lying back, tucking his arm beneath his head, feeling the thickness of a dressing wrapped around his forearm. "Where are we?"

"In the cave in the mountain. Not far from the lowest entry. I wanted somewhere you could heal up a little before we open the portal."

"Why?"

"You let me take too much, _cher_," Benny said, a thread of exasperation underlying the gentleness of his tone. "You were … not very coherent for a while there."

Dean considered that. He didn't remember much about it. He remembered the cave tilting and rolling at one point. Had he pulled away from the vampire?

"Dean, what you did … to those humans …" The vampire sounded hesitant, uncertain about what he was going to say.

"What about it?" He had only snapshot images of the bodies of the men he'd killed, had left to die. No continuation of memory on exactly what had happened.

"It – it didn't seem like you," Benny said softly.

Dean looked at the static memories of what he'd done, silent for a long time. "Oh, it was me, Benny. It was definitely me." The images were sickening, vivid and graphic and he knew where they'd come from. "I'm no better than they were. Just as … flawed, just as broken."

"No, you're not," the vampire said, his voice hard with conviction. "They were … worse than monsters."

"People often are," Dean said lightly. "Don't kid yourself."

"Why?"

"I don't know," he paused, unable to recapture that first moment, when he'd seen the vampire, bloodied and in agony, hanging as a plaything for the creatures who'd called themselves human. "Because of what they'd done – to you, to themselves. I don't know."

"Does it happen that way to you?" Benny asked diffidently.

Dean closed his eyes, knowing what he meant, even without a solid memory of exactly how he'd been. The machine had been in control, as it had before, in a different place. What he retained when that happened was emotionless and dry, without any kind of resonance. He saw everything without colour or texture, saw it as a thing, no more important than any other thing. He wondered why the vampire was so curious about it.

"No. Not in the real world," he said.

_It could, though_, he thought. The right trigger, the right reason and he could blank out again, rip his way through anyone or anything that stood in his way. He'd been very close before. "Benny, the things that I've done here – the things that we've done. They stay here, right?"

"Of course," the vampire sounded offended.

"What we've seen. All of it," Dean pressed, turning his head slightly to look in the vampire's direction. "When we get out … nothing will be like this. We don't get to do the barbeque get-togethers, the occasional drink at the bar thing – you understand that, right?"

"I understand, _cher_." The vampire drew in a breath. "Will you tell your brother? About this?"

"No." The word, the decision, came out without needing to consider it. Another secret from Sammy, but at least that way it wouldn't destroy anything further between them.

"He wouldn't understand?" Benny gestured vaguely. "That it was different here? That we were at war?"

Dean's lips curled into a derisive smile. "No, he wouldn't. He wouldn't understand any of this, Benny."

Maybe he was underestimating his brother, maybe Sam would understand what he'd done. But he'd been bitten by that maybe before, and he had lost too much to risk losing anything else now. Everything he'd believed about himself, everything he'd had the least shred of pride in, the things that he'd liked about himself, as few as they'd been – they were gone now, wiped out with the blood he'd spilled, with the pain he'd revelled in, with the decisions he'd made. He was a hunter. If he could hunt with his brother, he wouldn't fall over the edge again, he thought.

But Sam could never know that he had here.

"If you need a brother who does understand …" the vampire's voice was very low, and Dean closed his eyes. The vampire had no idea of what he was offering, of what it was stirring inside of him, how much he wanted that backup and how much it hurt to turn it down.

"I know," he said. "If you need something, you call, and I'll be there. But … otherwise …"

"Yeah, no contact," Benny said, the drawl noticeable again. "I'll remember."

He'd thought there was a way to figure it out, make it all work, somehow. But there wasn't, not really. No way to heal. No way to forget. No way to carry the purity, the trust and friendship and loyalty and hope back to the real world. He didn't know why he bothered to keep hoping that things would be different. They never were.

_Good things do happen, Dean_. The angel had told him that once. _Not in my experience_, he'd replied. And wasn't that the truth? Had he ever had anything good happen? Not saving-the-world good, but just good for him?

He pushed the thoughts aside and rubbed a hand over his forehead.

"Did you look over everything in the pack?"

"Yeah. All there. Ready to go," Benny said lightly.

"Guess we should get movin' then, open that sucker and go home," he said, rolling onto his side.

"It's still dark outside. We'll wait until it's light." Benny looked down at him. "Go to sleep, Dean."

Tiredness was dragging at him. Tiredness or some other thing, some other thing he didn't want to look at, didn't want to think about. He closed his eyes.

* * *

It was disorienting to be in the light again, Dean thought distantly, kneeling in the clearing and feeding the small, smokeless fire with the driest bits of wood he'd been able to find. Around him, the things needed for the soul transfer spell were laid out, Benny looking them over, his forehead creased with concentration as he muttered the incantation over and over again under his breath.

"Fire's hot enough," he said, looking up at the vampire. "You ready?"

Benny drew in a deep breath, his smile a little shaky for the first time. "Yeah."

Dean gave him a mocking half-smile. "Don't go rummaging around in me when you get in."

The vampire laughed, the tension disappearing from his eyes. "I'll be quiet."

Picking up the beaten metal bowl he'd scavenged from the camp, Dean put the items into it, one after another. He set the contents of the bowl on the fire, and picked up the sliver of obsidian carefully as Benny repeated the incantation over the burning bowl.

"You know the site of the grave?" Benny asked suddenly. "Gotta be the right one."

"I know it," he assured him, his voice tinged with a very gentle exasperation. "I won't forget."

He looked at the smoking ingredients in the bowl, watching them heat and char and burn down to a fine white ash. He dropped the hardened piece of fat into the bowl and it melted instantly, combining with the ash into a greyish sludge at the bottom. Pulling the bowl from the fire, he gestured to the vampire to kneel, and dipped his finger into the mixture, drawing the circle and the wards over his bare forearm, then repeating the design on the vampire's chest.

Raising his gaze, he met the vamp's eyes. "I'll see you on the other side."

"You will, brother." Benny closed his eyes and Dean lifted the glass sliver, slicing his arm open, wincing as he left the edge of the glass blade in the wound, and raised his arm to push the point into the vampire's chest.

When it reached the heart, the glass lit up, the solid black becoming translucent then transparent as a shifting molten red-gold light slipped into the crystalline structure and spiralled through into his arm. The pain of the monster's soul entering him was enormous, and he couldn't help the low groan that came out from between his clenched teeth, only a lifetime of self-discipline holding him still and unmoving as the soul slid out of the obsidian and under his skin, throbbing there like an infected wound. When the glass had returned to black, he let it fall. Benny's body dissolved into nothing and the wound on his arm closed up, sealing itself tightly, leaving only the finest white line to show the site.

God, good thing the vamp hadn't told him that, he thought, feeling his sweat dripping from his forehead, trickling down the back of his neck. He was something of a connoisseur when it came to pain, but he'd never felt anything like that. Opening his eyes, he looked down at his arm. Just stay put, Benny, he whispered silently. No jumping around in there.

It was time for step two, he thought, wiping his face and turning back to the fire. He added a few more sticks to it and picked up the bowl, getting to his feet and walking to the stream to rinse the residue from the bottom.

Blood and bone and fire, he thought, remembering the vamp's description as he put each of them in the bowl. The combined stink of the required ingredients as they burned over the fire almost drove him from the fire, the bone and the amber combination was particularly toxic, reaching down his nasal passages and making his stomach roll.

_What the hell was it going to be like, getting home again?_

The thought surprised him, a little, with its low-level anxiety. How could he go back to beds and food and choice and temptation and not knowing what to do, not feeling it in his gut?

He'd spent the last few months in a fever-pitch excitement to get out of here, and now that he was actually doing it, fear was gnawing at his insides, doubt that he could even fit in, crawling through his mind. He looked around the clearing, at the mountain towering over him to one side, the endless forests in their perpetual state of winter, the flat, grey featureless not-sky above him. Just that syndrome, he told himself, that prisoners who've been inside too long feel. It wasn't safer here, no matter what he felt like. It was only that he knew the parameters of this place now, knew how to survive here.

In one sense, it had been pure, simple, black and white. And he'd needed that, needed it badly after the years of being pushed around, manipulated by Heaven and Hell, by his conscience and his brother and an angel who'd managed to break his heart, offering friendship and taking it away, destroying his ability to feel trust. He'd needed to see what had to be done and just get on and do it.

It wasn't exactly pure here, though. It was murky too. Murky in the way that life was always murky, where a monster could become a friend and people could annihilate his last feelings of loyalty to his species.

He wanted to be able to take away that purity, to feel it inside of himself when he got home, and hunted again. He desperately wanted to feel like what he did, what he was good at and what drove him on really meant something, feel that clarity that was missing, feel that he could make a difference and save people's lives.

_Was that even possible? To bottle up a feeling and take it away with you? Take it out when things got confusing and inhale it and get back to where you started from?_

He didn't think so. Nothing was that easy.

He'd see his brother again. And they would hunt again. And maybe, from time to time, he'd feel the clarity, feel the clean, sharp edge of being capable and ahead of the predators, mind and heart and body working together in a harmony that felt like flying or singing or living.

_And your humanity?_ The thought slid past his defences, wrapping around him. _The part that knows right from wrong? That walks the high wire above the abyss and never falters or looks down? Will that be there when you get back?_

That he didn't know. He hoped so, because otherwise he would be better off staying here with the rest of the monsters and one day being too slow, or not lucky, or just giving up and dying here, unmourned and unremembered, good for nothing but fertiliser for the next lot of trees.

He looked into the bowl and saw that the contents had become a thick, black liquid at the bottom of the bowl. He'd made the circle, working from the sheet of human skin Benny had given him. He pulled the sleeves of his jacket down over his hands and picked up the bowl, carrying it to the centre. As soon as the bowl was removed from the fire, the contents dried, forming a coarse sand-like powder. He set the bowl down and began the incantation. Three times his voice, low and deep, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar words and sounds, echoed softly in the circle. Then he took out the Zippo and lit it, dropping it into the bowl.

The coarse, grainy powder burned, amethyst and azure flames reaching upward and Dean saw a bright light forming in front of him, in the middle of nothing, a foot from the ground and reaching higher, getting wider as he watched. He picked up his axe and waited, watching the slit become longer and wider. When it was wide enough for him to get through, he jumped into it, feeling a vertiginous pull as he passed from one plane to the next.

* * *

_**100 Mile Wilderness, Maine**_

He landed awkwardly, the half-rotten log falling apart under his weight, his balance skewed. He looked down and suddenly realised he could see, despite the darkness. Overhead, the black sky was filled with stars and to the west, a small crescent moon added its soft silver light to the night, enough to see the outline of the trees, to see the pieces of the log he'd landed on.

Smell hit him next. An intoxicating, rich mixture of scents, of the forest and the animals that lived there, of the cold breeze that dried the sweat on his face, made him shiver slightly under his clothes.

He walked forward, along a faint trail, his heart thumping against the walls of his chest, his fingers tightly closed around the bone handle of his axe. He wasn't sure why he'd brought it through with him, ugly and imbalanced and anachronistic as it was, only knew that he couldn't leave it behind.

He reached a clearing, of sorts, in the thick trees and looked up. The constellations winked and twinkled at him in the clear air, so familiar and solid up there that he felt his throat close suddenly.

He was here. He was back. They'd done it. They'd made it through and he was home.

* * *

_All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.  
~ Yann Martel_

* * *

**END**

_**AN**__: This story wouldn't have been possible without the collaboration, hard work, enduring patience and analytical skills of __**Hundley**__, whom I would like to thank for all thoughts, comments, picking up of mistakes, tolerance of an endless stream of emails at all hours of the day and night, regional knowledge and personal insight into Dean Winchester. _

_This rendition of Dean's year in Purgatory and beyond is continued for the events of season 8 in **Silver for Charon**, and continues into season 9 with **Disposable Heroes**. Both stories are a reimagining of those seasons._


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